Tekla Engelhardt is a food engineer with a PhD in food sciences. Her scientific research work began in 2011 in the field of food safety after graduating at the Faculty of Food Science, BCE (later SZIE) as a food engineer. Her PhD work focused on the detection and inhibition of the growth of food origin pathogenic microbes and modelling their behaviour. At the same time, she took part in consultancy for food industries who had food safety issues. She received her PhD degree in 2016.

In 2017, she joined the System Management and Supervision Directorate, National Food Chain Safety Office as an analyst. Her main responsibilities were: preparing epidemiological forecasts, identifying emerging risks, food safety-focused analyses which were required for the strategic planning. In addition, she is involved as guest lecturer in Risk Analysis courses in English and Hungarian at the Faculty of Food Science, SZIE, also taking part in PhD thesis supervisions. The research works focuses on the characterization and reduction options for microbial risks in the food chain.

Since January 2013, she has been the secretary of the Hungarian Association for Food Protection. Since December 2018, she has been a member of the Public Body of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Section of Chemical Sciences, Committee of Food Sciences).

Her main responsibilities at the department are the coordination of educational activities, e.g. the development and launch of postgraduate courses, and management of laboratory work. She also participates in the identification of emerging risks and in epidemiological modelling.