Taylor was born in London and came to live in Adelaide, South Australia with her family at the age of five.
[2] Taylor studied for her MA in History at the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1996.
[3] In 2015 she was awarded the inaugural Coral Thomas Fellowship by the State Library of New South Wales.
At the end of her two-year term she gave the inaugural Coral Thomas Lecture titled "The untold story of the Wedge Collection" on John Helder Wedge.
[4] In April 2018 she became Senior Research Fellow at the College of Arts, Law and Education at the University of Tasmania.