Outstanding Student Award: Ellen Evans 2023

Ellen Evans, HM.CLAUSE
2023 Outstanding Student Award Winner

Ellen Evans was the Outstanding Student Award winner for 2023 and gave the Graduation speech for Davis PBA Class VIII on September 15, 2023. Ellen spoke about how fulfilling plant breeding is and how accomplished the class should feel after completing this extensive course. 

Ellen received her Outstanding Student Award on June 12, 2023 at the ASTA Leadership Summit in Sacramento, California. View the SBC announcement and read the full Seed World article online here or text is below: 

(From Seed World Group, June 2023):

One of the highlights is at the end of the two-year program prior to the students’ graduation, one student is recognized with the Outstanding Student Award. While the award doesn’t have any monetary value, Jovan Djordjevic says the award really showcases a collective industry-wide commitment to continuous education and fostering innovation in plant breeding.

“We like to reward a student that did quite a bit of effort through the academia,” he says, adding that quite often, it’s difficult to award just one student. “All students deserve the accolades.”

This year’s Outstanding Student Award is presented to Ellen Evans, associate breeder of cucumber at HM.Clause Vegetable Seeds.

“Ellen had an exceptional desire to become a plant breeder. She spent quite a few years in the industry in different roles — pathology, molecular marker, biology…” Djordjevic says. “At some point of time, she must have said: ‘Okay, but what really inspires me is the creation of new varieties.’ I think this drive to become a plant breeder was truly remarkable.”

For Evans, the UC Davis Plant Breeding Academy offered her a new path toward plant breeding — one where she could take her relevant skills and on-the-job experience while learning the background of plant breeding without having to stop her career to get a PhD.

“By ensuring I have a solid understanding of the fundamentals as well as many of the latest techniques, I hope to maximize my chance of earning a full breeder title at HM.Clause,” she says. “I think even for PhD-educated breeders with years of experience, there is something to be said for reviewing the basics periodically, from good experimental design and statistical analysis to basic breeding concepts, program management and leadership.”

Throughout the last two years, Evans has been on the ground learning both virtually and in-person about the ins and outs of plant breeding while getting to put her education to work during her daily job as well.

Her favorite subjects? Those that she can continue to use in her current position.

“For example, genetics practices that lead to better inbreds and hybrids, such as analyzing general combining ability, techniques for designating heterotic groups, and data analysis that uses historic and current data from your program to predict good combinations for future hybrids and line development,” Evans says, noting this particular subject is something she can apply straight away as an associate breeder. “I also like the big picture things we discuss, like breeding process management and optimization, foundation seed and seed production, and the importance of innovation to one’s program.”

With the Academy almost ready to wrap up this term, and this new achievement under her belt, Evans says she’s fortunate to be doing what she loves already.

“Every day I go to work with great people who are passionate about the projects we work on.  Cucumber is a fascinating and fun crop and I enjoy traveling the world with my team to look at how our test varieties behave in the environments we breed for,” she says. “One never knows what the future may bring, but I trust that if I continue to put in the effort and apply the things I learned in the Plant Breeding Academy, I, the cucumber team and the company will benefit.”

And, if you’re teetering on the edge of deciding to join the UC Davis Plant Breeding Academy either in the U.S. or in Europe, Evans has some advice: while it’s a big commitment, it’s worth it.

“What convinced me was when a former attendee from my company, Jon Gienapp, told me he found the experience valuable not only for the classroom learning, but also for the connections made with classmates during the activities you do together outside of class,” she says. “I endorse that 100%. My classmates are a unique and engaging bunch who I look forward to seeing each session. I can add that the field trips organized by Jovan and Whitney have been impressive and the host companies and UC Davis campus labs that we visit have all been very welcoming and excited to share their work with us.”

Congratulations, Ellen! 

Ellen Evans Graduation Speech PowerPoint and Text:

"Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today.

On a Monday morning in July I had to report to the Sacramento County courthouse for jury duty.  My group of sixty was called for one of the first trials of the morning.  We filed upstairs to the courtroom and the judge and lawyers began to question us as part of the selection process.  

If selected to be on the jury, I would likely miss two weeks of work during our critical field evaluation season.  

Everyone was asked about their profession and any personal experiences or beliefs that could possibly cause bias when judging the case.  I listened as the judge questioned government employees, IT workers, accountants, and medical professionals.  

Finally, when it was my turn to be questioned the judge asked, “What is your job?”  I said, “I breed cucumbers for a seed company in Davis.”  I could hear the reactions around the room indicating surprise and interest at this.

 She asked, “How do you do that?” and I said, “Well, you’ve heard of dog breeding?  It’s like that but for cucumbers.”  She followed up asking more about the specifics of the job—what sort of activities do I do, are we breeding plants to adapt to climate change.   

When it was the lawyers’ turn to question me, one of them asked me, “How would you make a tastier pickling cucumber?”  I thought for a second and then replied, “How would you define tastier?” and we had a bit of a discussion about that.  Afterwards in the hall one of the other jurors came up to me and said, “Were you the person who breeds cucumbers?  I just wanted to say that is really cool!”

The point of this story is that Plant Breeding IS really cool.  What is it about plant breeding that made you put yourself through the last two years?  What made you spend significant time and money to attend Plant Breeding Academy?  What made you travel here, many of you internationally, on the heels of a global pandemic?  

We took on the commitment and challenge of this two-year program because we want to improve the crops that we work on so that they are more efficient, more resilient, and more appealing to growers and consumers. 

Think back on everything you conquered to be here today: basic statistics homework assignments, intimidating R Scripts, the genetics of host-pathogen interaction and male sterility.  And perhaps the biggest hurdle, the PBA Final Project.  

If you were like me, during any free time in 2023 that you weren’t actively working on your project, you felt guilty that you should have been working on your project.  

While we are doubtless looking forward to applying the many concepts we learned in PBA to our work, I am sure we are also anticipating the return of weekends of homework-free, project-free quality time with our families and personal interests.

Plant Breeding Academy was created in 2006 in response to the limited availability of trained plant breeders emerging from traditional university academic programs.  The course goal as stated on the PBA website is to develop “the skills and abilities of current industry personnel to enable them to become independent breeders or more valuable contributors to larger breeding programs.”

There aren’t enough plant breeders to satisfy the demand for them because young students have not heard of this as a career option, despite plant breeding existing as a profession for over 100 years.  After you leave here today, look for opportunities to be ambassadors for plant breeding and other plant-based careers.  Find a local school with a garden and volunteer to donate plants or help a science class with a botany project.  See if a youth organization like 4H or Future Farmers of America would like to take a tour of your company.  Recruit for internships at a high school or college career fair and talk to the students there about your experience and why you love your job.    

I once shared this Rex Bernardo quote with my mom to try to explain why I loved working in plant breeding.  It is from his book Essentials of Plant Breeding: 

“A plant breeder’s work is fulfilling.  There is much personal satisfaction in developing individual plants with unique gene combinations that have never existed before, and in sorting out which of the thousands of progeny can best meet human needs.  Because humans ultimately depend on plants for their existence, plant breeders contribute to the well-being of society as a whole…. A plant breeder is partly a scientist, engineer, artist, and manager who uses his or her expertise, experience, and skills to create a cultivar.”  

A few words about that last part, the manager part.  Plant breeding is never a solo effort.  Even if you aren’t formally a manager in your organization, I am sure it takes a team of hard-working individuals to grow, pollinate, propagate, sample, and harvest the fruits of your labors.  

As you practice and build on the scientific skills you have learned in this course, consider looking for ways to improve the traits you need in yourself to work effectively with people locally and globally to achieve your goals as a breeder.  A team who understands the big picture of why they do what they do is more motivated and more invested in the success of the project. 

On behalf of the class, I would like to thank the team that has been instructing us.

Kendra – Thank you for infusing your technical lectures with humor, which made intimidating subjects more inviting.

Jay – Thank you for real life industry examples that illustrated the business consequences of the topics we studied.  

Jovan – Of all the things you taught us over the past two years, what is going to stick with me the most is your emphasis on innovation.

Allen – Thank you for teaching us decades worth of molecular genetics in just a few hours.

Kent – Thank you for sharing your knowledge of the seed world with us, and for your continued support of the PBA program during your “retirement”.

Whitney – Thank you for making sure we stayed alert and well-fed and caffeinated.  We could not have survived this course without you.

 Fortunately, the lawyers did not select ME to participate in the trial.  Instead, I was able to spend the rest of the summer making selections in my OWN trials, happy knowing that my work was pushing the pipeline closer to yet another improved cucumber variety."