A San Antonio native, Teresa Talerico serves as the faculty adviser to the student-run news site, The Mesquite. A journalist for 22 years and an educator since 2014, Teresa has reported for the Waco Tribune-Herald, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, San Antonio Light, Virginian-Pilot and other publications. She has an M.S. degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. Before joining the faculty at A&M-San Antonio, she taught journalism at San Antonio College. SAC is one of her alma maters; she studied journalism there and worked as an editor for The Ranger. Teresa also has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

In fall 2023, Teresa and her reporting students launched a news site, The Cypress, in the news desert of Castroville, Texas, a town that had lost its weekly newspaper after the deaths of the husband-and-wife publishers. The Cypress received a Press Forward grant in 2024, which allows the site to pay an intern and a professional adviser.

A longtime Coast Guard wife, Teresa has been marrried to Erik Sumpter since 1999. They moved to San Antonio when he retired, and they love hiking, swing dancing, visiting Texas swimming holes and hanging out with their dog and cat. Teresa enjoys playing the ukulele, and she is a mediocre knitter.