Ellen Young is originally from St. Louis, Missouri, where she developed an interest in plant science working in her family’s garden and visiting the Missouri Botanical Garden. She received her B.S. in Biology from Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, where she conducted research on the genetic basis of melanism in the eastern gray squirrel. An internship at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House cemented her interest in horticulture, leading her to pursue a PhD in horticulture at Texas A&M and join the Rose Breeding & Genetics program in 2014.
Ellen’s graduate work includes developing diploid rose populations for assessment of rose rosette disease resistance, working with rose species Rosa palustris, Rosa setigera, and Rosa rugosa. She is also involved in identifying molecular markers for black spot resistance and plant architecture. She has presented aspects of this work at the American Society for Horticultural Sciences conferences in 2015, 2016, and 2018, and at the International Symposium on Rose Research and Cultivation in 2017.