[3] From 1932 to 1938, Young attended Bedford College for Women in London, first studying for a general degree involving chemistry, physics, botany and zoology, and then earning a BSc in physiology in 1938.
[4] During World War II, Young's Bedford College department was evacuated from London, which was under attack, to the Physiological Laboratory at Cambridge where she met Sir Joseph Barcroft (1872–1947).
[2][4] In 1946 after the war's conclusion, Young was recruited to work at St Thomas' Hospital Medical School as a demonstrator in physiology as well as a tutor to assist the newly admitted female students.
The years that followed were rewarding for Young.This was a most exciting time, and the most productive period of Maureen's illustrious career, for the phenomenon of the Small for Gestational Age baby had just been realised.
Given complete scientific freedom, Maureen and colleagues conducted a series of innovative studies investigating transfer of amino acids across the placenta, and the effects of insulin on protein turnover in developing tissues.