Sarah R. Young received her PhD from the University of Alabama and her MSW with a focus in community organizing from the University of Michigan. Her love for the color orange started at Syracuse University, where she earned her BSSW in 2004. Born and raised in a rural town in Upstate New York, Young fell in love with the Deep South as a social work intern and lived in Mississippi from 2008 to 2012. She is the co-founder of the Mississippi Safe Schools Coalition, a youth-led advocacy group working to make schools safer for LGBTQ youth. From 2008 through 2010, she served as a Ford Foundation “New Voices" Fellow, one of 12 people selected as a new voice in human rights.