Young is associate director of the Iowa Flood Center and a research engineer at IIHR—Hydroscience & Engineering. He is involved in IFC's floodplain mapping and watershed modeling activities, which include community-based floodplain map libraries for disaster preparedness, a statewide effort to create and update regulatory floodplain maps, and watershed-scale flood mitigation planning. His other research interests are related to ecohydraulics. Young's experience includes laboratory experiments, numerical simulations, and field measurements related to passage of juvenile salmonids through hydroelectric projects on the Snake and Columbia rivers, the physical habitat requirements of freshwater mussels in the Upper Mississippi and the Mississippi Delta region, and fate and transport of nitrogen in the Mississippi River backwaters.