She is known for her work on "Prophesy," described as "a database used to collect and analyze data to predict the performance on different applications on parallel systems.

[2] In 1991, Taylor received her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in electrical engineering and computer science, under advisor David Messerschmitt.

[10] While on the faculty of both Northwestern and Texas A&M, Taylor collaborated with research with Argonne National Laboratory, including a summer sabbatical in 2011.

At Argonne, she cowrote the Department of Energy's comprehensive AI for Science report based on a series of Town Hall meetings.

[13] It hosts an annual Tapia Conference for computer scientists from underrepresented communities, enabling them to share research, find mentors, and network.