Shenia R. Young

Shenia Young is a Microbiologist in the Division of Animal and Food Microbiology, Office of Research, at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine in Laurel, Maryland. After graduating from Towson University in 1997, she worked in several clinical labs at the Maryland Public Health Laboratories Division from 1998 to 2008. During her time at the health department, she worked in a virology lab, as well as, several microbiology labs including general microbiology (wounds, throats, pertussis, urine cultures, etc.), enteric diseases, bioterrorism and the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS).

In October 2008, Shenia joined the FDA to work with the Division of Animal Food Microbiology and NARMS. Her primary focus has been NARMS isolation methods and Campylobacter susceptibility testing and molecular characterization. In 2019, Shenia joined Dr. Beilei Ge’s research team addressing microbial food and feed safety issues in support of the Center for Veterinary Medicine’s regulatory mission. Their research group works on developing rapid, reliable, and robust pathogen detection methods in animal food, characterizing phenotypic and genotypic traits of foodborne pathogens and indicator organisms in animal food, evaluating mitigation strategies for pathogen control in animal food, and investigating dynamics of antimicrobial resistance development in foodborne bacteria. Shenia employs traditional microbiological and molecular methods and newer genomic and metagenomics tools in her research.