Finding Her Path

by Jeremy Gerlach

When Taylor Black ’23 saw the word “Congratulations!” pop up in a phone notification on her buzzing home screen, she couldn’t believe it.

The message was an award for her poster presentation this spring at the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology conference in Austin, Texas. Taylor’s presentation, stemming from her years of research on lizard teeth in Trinity University biology professor Michele Johnson’s lab, won her this award against the likes of Ivy League postdocs.

Not bad for a sociology major who minored in biology—let alone someone who never thought she’d be working with animals from this part of the food chain.

“I’m not a big bug or lizard person, but there I was at Trinity, studying the relation of tooth sizes, shapes, and numbers between different species of lizards,” says Taylor, who’d entered the conference almost on a whim. “But when

I looked closer at my phone [notification] a few weeks later, it said I had won the poster presentation in my division, ‘Vertebrate Morphology.’”

That was life at Trinity for Taylor: one series of unexpected turns after another.

Recruited as a volleyball player, Taylor thrived on Trinity’s team under the leadership of Head Volleyball Coach Julie Jenkins before she decided to focus on her academic studies after one season.

Entering school determined to be a doctor and pursue pre-med in order to help people stay healthy, Taylor instead gravitated towards sociology with ambitions of one day starting her own public health nonprofit.

While she balanced working in two research labs (one for Professor Amy Stone, Ph.D., in sociology and one for Professor Johnson, Ph.D., in biology), Taylor never anticipated her voice would be heard on a national scale. Now, she’s never been more confident that her voice is worthy of recognition.

“It’s crazy to think that lizard teeth, out of all the different things in the world, made people interested in what I had to say,” she says. “And it honestly meant the whole world that people were interested in what I had to say, especially being a Black woman in a research space that is [usually associated] with white voices.” serving as a community manager for the Residential Life Office and as the president of Trinity’s Black Student Union.

“As a Black woman, my most precious community was the Black Student Union because that is where so many Black students congregate, and that is a place where you can actually converse with others who share similar cultural experiences,” she says. “But my success wasn’t just with the student population here. What also matters is the professors—everyone who just cares to make sure that you are in the place that you need to be. I had so many faculty and staff members who really helped me get to where I am. Even the dining and custodial staff made the Trinity community just so special to me.”

Having just graduated, Taylor’s now set her sights on charting her path to her dream career.

Despite her change in direction, Taylor was able to traverse her Trinity journey successfully thanks to help from a diverse support network. And she even had the chance to lead and support her fellow students on their own paths by

“I’m going to get my master’s in public health for global health epidemiology. But first, I’m taking a gap year to do more research within the public health field. [I want] to look into all the programs that I want to join and see my bigger picture, so I have an understanding of what I want to do in the future,” she says. “I want to look at what populations are in need, what’s happening there, then go out and get my Ph.D. in global health epidemiology. Then, I’ll open my own nonprofit and win the grants I need to be able to help those populations in need.”