Savytska, Olena

Savytska, Olena [Савицька, Олена; Savyc'ka; née Kharechko; Helen Savitsky], b 17 February 1901 in Poltava, d May 1986 in California. Geneticist and embryologist. A graduate of Leningrad University (1940), she worked in Kyiv at the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of the Sugar Industry (1927–41) and the Ukrainian Scientific Research Institute of Plant Cultivation, Selection, and Genetics (1941–3). After emigrating to Germany (1944) and then to the United States she was a cytogeneticist with the US Department of Agriculture (from 1947) and the Beet Sugar Development Foundation (1947–61). Together with her husband, Viacheslav Savytsky, she developed a monogerm sugar beet.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]