Board of Directors

Michael R. Taylor

Mike Taylor is a research professor at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. His public health research agenda focuses on policy, resource, and institutional issues that affect the success of public health agencies in carrying out their prevention missions. He co-founded and chairs the Steering Committee of the Food Safety Research Consortium, a multi-disciplinary collaborative effort among seven research institutions to improve food safety priority setting and decision-making.

Mr. Taylor is also a senior fellow with The Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa and conducts research on policies of the United States and developments in Africa that affect agriculture-led economic growth and poverty reduction. Prior to joining the GW faculty, Mr. Taylor was a professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine and before that a senior fellow at Resources for the Future, a non-profit public policy research organization.

Mr. Taylor has served in government as Administrator of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (1994-1996), Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the Food and Drug Administration (1991-1994), and FDA staff lawyer and Executive Assistant to the FDA Commissioner (1976-1981). In the private sector, he established and led the food and drug law practice at King & Spalding and was Vice President for Public Policy at Monsanto Company.

Mr. Taylor is currently a member of an NAS committee that is studying decision-making under uncertainty for the Environmental Protection Agency and recently co-chaired an NAS committee that conducted an EPA-sponsored study on human testing of pesticides and other EPA-regulated substances. He is a board member of Resolve, Inc. and the Alliance to End Hunger.

Mr. Taylor received his law degree from the University of Virginia and his B.A. in political science from Davidson College. Email at mike.taylor@gwumc.edu.