FCSM's Blair Taylor named a top female tech leader by MDBIZNews

By Megan Bradshaw on June 24, 2016

Dr. Blair Taylor continues to shine as a cyber star in Maryland's increasingly influential tech community. The Towson University Jess and Mildred Fisher College of Science and Mathematics clinical associate professor was recently named one of Maryland's top female tech leaders by MDBIZNews.

Taylor leads special projects that extends curriculum around secure coding and cybersecurity principles, including SPLASH (Secure Programming Logic Aimed at Seniors in High School). Her latest project, Cyber4All, involves developing an interdisciplinary minor in cybersecurity available to undergraduate business, healthcare management, and criminal justice majors.

Taylor, who enrolled at John Hopkins University at age 16 and later worked as a computer programmer, became an academic after discovering a love for teaching.

In 2012 she received a University System of Maryland Regents’ Faculty Award for teaching, the highest honor the board presents to USM faculty members, and in 2014, she was named to the Baltimore Sun Magazine's "50 Women to Watch."

Taylor is among distinguished company on the MDBIZNews list, beside women from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, the National Security Agency (NSA), Lockheed Martin, the Maryland Department of Commerce, UMBC, University of Maryland College Park, and founders and CEOs of private tech companies.

TU offers many initiatives to boost female participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects. Those initiatives include a “Women in Science” forum to promote the STEM field to female secondary, undergraduate and graduate students and to listen to women speakers who work in diverse science professions from meteorologists and science show producers to physicians and astronomers, as well as a Women in Science club and Women in Science Program. The College of Education also offers a Girls Who Code club to girls in grades six through 12.

In its article, the site noted Maryland ranks second in the U.S. in the ratio of female to male workers in IT occupations (24 percent), according to ComTIA’s Cyberstates analysis, and the state beats the national average for women who hold computer and mathematical positions (31.2 percent to 26.5 percent). This, combined with a below-average gender pay gap, puts Baltimore fourth in SmartAsset’s “Best Cities for Women in Tech” rankings.