About Me

If you've ever met me, you probably know that I have two cats and I spend a good amount of time taking pictures of their antics. Eventually my family and friends grew tired of my relentless messages with these pictures and begged I put them on an Instagram account.

I am bisexual. Growing up, I never had queer representation in my science courses -- or at least never had open queer representation. This really impacted me, especially back when I was discovering my sexuality and never saw bi role models or anyone who publicly identified as bisexual except for femme characters in movies written by men, for the male gaze (so of course they were written to play up all of the bi stereotypes with no focus on the humanity of the characters).

It took me a long time to be comfortable with who I am and to be comfortable expressing myself, being open about it. As I now travel the world and meet a lot of different kinds of people, I try to be as open as I can be about my sexuality in the hopes that I can be that real, legitmate representation that I had so dearly wished for when I was younger.

I love plants! I have an ever-growing family of plants – most of them are cat safe cause my cats like to treat all plants like free-range salad. I include pictures of my plants and ones I come across on my travels on my Instagram account.

I feel most like an astronomer when I travel around the world, using some of the world's best telescopes! To share my travel experiences, I post pictures of these travels on my Instagram as well as in the "Taylor's Travels" photo gallery on this website.

I have many more telescopes on my bucket list — so stay tuned!

I love tattoos! I find them beautiful and a unique way to express yourself. I'm a big advocate for scientists with tattoos, because people never imagine scientists with tattoos — but there are a lot more of us than most people realize! There's often such a stigma around tattoos in general, but especially in the hard sciences, so I try to normalize that as much as I can in the spaces that I occupy. I'm also the first person to hype up my friends and colleagues to get tattoos, with the forever goal of increasing the number of tatted scientists, one scientist at a time! :)

More broadly, I enjoy designing and getting tattoos that reflect my love of marine biology. I also love seeing other people's tattoos and hearing about why they chose them — if you have some feel free to share your photos with me, I would love to see them!

I love being outdoors. My favorite experiences are when I'm able to walk alone in the woods or by an ocean. I don't get to explore nature as much as I'd like right now, but I take advantage of every opportunity I can get!

I've always loved to hand sew, but in January 2020 my family group-gifted me a Singer sewing machine! Since then, it's become one of my favorite hobbies. I'm slowly working through changing out my wardrobe with clothing that I have made. I also post updates about my sewing adventures on my Instagram.

I'm currently working on making a pirate shirt, so stay tuned!

I have been playing cello on and off for about 11 years (mostly off nowadays), although more professionally during my undergraduate tenure at Southwestern University (Georgetown, TX, USA). My favorite composer is Bach, because he understands the potential of cello the best and his music conveys this beautifully.

I also love to say that violin is over-rated (mostly to annoy my violinist friends).

One of my favorite stress-relieving practices is crafting, particularly taking old unused things and working them into useful or beautiful things. I am a master builder when it comes to projects with cardboard – give me a challenge and I can make it using cardboard (see my Alexa Echo wall mount, made from cardboard :)