Written by Taylor Harman, Ph.D.
Taylor is postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University, where she conducts research in the Anthropological Health & Data Science (AHDS) Lab. Her work encompasses several different aspects of human health and biology, including pregnancy & infant health, heat stress & child growth, and health inequities.
Taylor earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Syracuse University, where she was co-advised by faculty in the departments of Anthropology and Exercise Science. This cross-disciplinary training allowed her to develop expertise in human biology from multiple perspectives. Her anthropological training provided her with broad-scale evolutionary theory that allowed her to describe processes of human adaptation to high altitude environments over the last ~10,000 years. Her training in exercise science provided her with expertise in cardiorespiratory physiology, as well as practical skills in assessing anthropometry, aerobic & anaerobic capacity, and doppler ultrasound. Together, this interdisciplinary training allowed her to characterize the distinct set of adaptations present in two contemporary highlander populations: the Sherpas of Nepal, and the Andeans of Peru.
At Vanderbilt, Taylor is expanding her research interests to include measures of human health, beyond basic physiology. She is especially focused on using Bayesian modeling to predict negative health outcomes among birthing persons and infants in the United States. This is especially relevant, as the US continues to have the worst pregnancy and childbirth outcomes of any wealthy nation, globally.
As her postdoctoral fellowship comes to a close, Taylor has accepted a job offer with the California State Government, where she will serve as a research scientist with the Department of Healthcare Access and Information. In this new role, Taylor will take her extensive training in human health and data science from Vanderbilt, and apply it to real-world healthcare issues, performing data analysis to inform policy decisions at the state level.