Dr. DeBose-Boyd was born and raised in the small rural southeastern Oklahoma town of Boswell. He completed undergraduate studies at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, where he participated in the Minority Biomedical Research Support program and . obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry with minors in Mathematics and Biology. Soon after completion of undergraduate studies, Dr. DeBose-Boyd joined the laboratory of Richard D. Cummings, Ph. D. in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Following his defense, Dr. DeBose-Boyd joined the laboratory of Joseph L. Goldstein, M.D. and Michael S. Brown, M.D. at UT Southwestern Medical Center as a fellow of the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research. After a successful postdoctoral fellowship, Drs. Goldstein and Brown invited Dr. DeBose-Boyd to join the faculty of the Molecular Genetics department as an Assistant Professor in 2003. He became an Established Investigator of the American Heart Association in 2005 and a W.M. Keck Distinguished Young Scholar in Medical Research in 2006. Dr. DeBose-Boyd was promoted to Associate Professor in 2007 and in 2009 he was appointed a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist. In 2013, Dr. DeBose-Boyd was promoted to Professor and was named the Beatrice and Miguel Elias Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Science in 2016.