She received her BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology at the University of Richmond and her MA and PhD in Criminology/Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research interests include drug-related crime, mental health, research methodology, and violent crime and victimization, especially among young adults. Both her teaching and her research take a broad inter-disciplinary perspective, drawing from fields of medicine, psychology, public health, and sociology. Before joining the faculty, Professor Dykstra worked for the Center on Young Adult Health and Development at the University of Maryland on the College Life Study, a prospective longitudinal study of health-related behaviors of young adults funded by the National Institutes of Health.