Nicole Taylor

Nicole Taylor is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Ph.D. Program Coordinator at Texas State University, specializing in digital ethnography, youth culture, and social media practices. Her research examines how contemporary youth navigate identity, body image, and social relationships in both physical and digital spaces, with particular focus on college students' experiences with social media platforms.

Dr. Taylor earned her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Arizona, an MA in English from Texas A&M University, and a BA in English from Texas State University. Prior to her academic career, she worked in nonprofit and corporate settings conducting research on substance abuse, poverty, childhood obesity, and school climate. She also served as Director of Scholar Programs at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe for five years before returning to her undergraduate alma mater as faculty.

Her primary research interests include digital ethnography, social media practices, body image and gender, childhood obesity, adolescent health, and qualitative research methods. Funded by National Science Foundation grants, her recent work explores identity construction and emotional expression on social media, introducing the concept of 'digital multiples' to describe how students strategically present different versions of themselves across platforms. She also collaborates with Dr. Kate Spradley on research examining decision-making processes surrounding unidentified human remains along the Texas border.

Dr. Taylor's scholarly work has been recognized with multiple awards, including being a finalist for the 2016 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards and winning First Place (Societal Issues) and Best Non-fiction Book of the Year in the 2016-17 ReaderViews Literary Awards for her book Schooled on Fat: What Teens Tell Us About Gender, Body Image, and Obesity.

She has secured significant research funding from the National Science Foundation for her social media ethnography project and participated in the NSF I-Corps program to explore solutions for social media dependence. As Ph.D. Program Coordinator, she mentors graduate students in designing and conducting anthropological research on contemporary social issues related to youth culture and digital spaces.

Dr. Taylor teaches undergraduate courses including Applied Cultural Anthropology, Medical Anthropology, Anthropology of Youth, and Language and the Body, as well as graduate courses in Qualitative Methods and Applied Anthropology Methods, bringing her research expertise into the classroom to train future anthropologists in digital ethnographic approaches.