He is an Emeritus Professor of Oceanography at the University of Hawaii's School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology.
Young took a Bachelor of Arts degree at Pomona College in 1960, his Master of Science degree was taken at the University of Southern California in 1964 and his PH.D. was awarded in 1968 by the University of Miami, Institute of Marine Sciences.
[1] He was a visiting Assistant Professor of Zoology at the Ohio Wesleyan University from September, 1968 to June, 1969.
He has most recently being studying the ecology of animals in the Mesopelagic Boundary Region.
[2] From 1996 up to the present he has been a major contributor on cephalopods to the Tree of Life Web Project.