Before her current position, DeYoung spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. Her PhD is in applied social and community psychology from North Carolina State University. Her main areas of research are Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies, community-based disaster mitigation (especially seismic mitigation), disaster policy, wildfire evacuations, pets in evacuations, and general behavioral aspects of hurricane evacuations. She is an advocate for safe infant feeding in disaster and conflict settings and works as a volunteer for safelyfed.org.