For Taylor Reichelderfer, the path back to science was not about leaving one field behind. It was about bringing everything she had learned into one place. After beginning college with plans to pursue medicine and laboratory science, she found her way to social work and child welfare before ultimately returning to science through neuroscience and research.
Today, as a master of science in public health (MSPH) student at the USF College of Public Health (COPH), she is bringing those experiences together to study the complex biological, developmental and environmental factors that increase vulnerability for serious mental illness.
Reichelderfer, who was born and raised in Pasco County, Florida, attended Pasco-Hernando State College, where she completed her associate degree. Throughout that time, she had her sights set on USF, encouraged in part by mentors who were USF alumni.
“I always had the goal in my head of ‘just get to USF,’” she said.
Her original academic plan was centered on microbiology and pre-medicine, with the goal of becoming a clinical pathologist. But the COVID-19 pandemic forced her coursework online just as she was navigating demanding classes such as anatomy and physiology, chemistry and calculus. At the time, she said she was also struggling with undiagnosed ADHD and the sudden loss of the structure she relied on in the classroom.
As the challenges accumulated, Reichelderfer decided to step away from medicine and science. Instead, she pursued her longstanding interest in mental health and child advocacy, eventually earning a bachelor of social work from USF and working directly with children and families in child welfare and the foster care system.
“I saw firsthand how biological vulnerability, traumatic experiences, familial dynamics, learned behaviors, poverty, culture and larger systems can all interact across developmental stages,” she said.
Working with children experiencing serious psychiatric symptoms also strengthened her interest in advocacy and policy, particularly for young people with serious mental illness and childhood-onset schizophrenia.
As she learned more about the mental health conditions she encountered through her coursework and interactions with families, she became increasingly interested in the biological processes underlying them. That led her to molecular and computational neuroscience, where she found a way to reconnect her interests in biology and science with her commitment to mental health and advocacy.
“Returning to science did not mean leaving social work behind,” she said. “Instead, it meant bringing those perspectives together.”
Reichelderfer worked to conduct R-based analysis and developed protein-protein interaction network visualizations for her research in the USF Health Neuroscience Institute. Her work used proteomic data obtained from neuronal models to study the molecular and systems level effects of FKBP51 inhibition, including alterations in biological pathways and protein networks. (Photo courtesy of Reichelderfer)
That intersection ultimately led Reichelderfer to COPH's MSPH in genomics. She said she was drawn to the thesis-based, research-focused program because it offered a way to explore psychiatric genomics and epigenetics while examining how biological vulnerability interacts with trauma, environment, development and lived experience.
Her research focuses on public health genomics, with a particular interest in why individuals differ in their vulnerability to psychiatric and neurological conditions, especially psychosis and schizophrenia.
Reichelderfer interacts with complex datasets, including proteomic, transcriptomic, epigenomic, spatial and population-level data, to investigate how molecular and developmental processes interact with behavioral and environmental factors.
“I find myself genuinely excited by the complexity of the problems rather than intimidated by it,” she said.
Her interests have continued to expand. Today, she is particularly excited about the intersection of language, linguistics, culture and machine learning in mental health research. She wants to understand how patterns in speech and language, including word choice, semantic relationships and discourse structure, may provide insight into cognition and psychiatric functioning among people with psychosis and schizophrenia.
Reichelderfer (second from left) attended the 2026 Institute for Translational Research Education in Adolescent Substance Use (ITRE) Conference with her cohort during her first semester in the program. Through the graduate certificate research program, ITRE provides interdisciplinary training focused on translating behavioral health research into applied public health research and practice for adolescents and young adults. (Photo courtesy of Reichelderfer)
Her social work background remains central to how she approaches her research. Rather than viewing serious mental illness solely through biological or genetic factors, she brings what she describes as the social work “person in the environment” perspective to her scientific work.
Reichelderfer is also navigating graduate school while raising a family. She began her MSPH just weeks after giving birth to her son and is helping raise three older stepchildren. Parenthood, she said, has fundamentally changed her understanding of resilience, discipline and what is possible.
“There is no single correct timeline for becoming who you want to become,” she said. “Your path may include parenthood, changing fields, starting over, taking longer than expected, doubting yourself or discovering strengths you did not know you had until life forced you to use them.”
Her long-term goal is to pursue doctoral training in epidemiology and build an interdisciplinary research career focused on understanding serious mental illness earlier in development.
Ultimately, she wants that work to help young people receive support before they reach a point of crisis.
“I want to connect the biological mechanisms of neurodevelopment with the behavioral and linguistic signals through which vulnerability may first become observable,” she said. “The impact I strive for is not just a better model of schizophrenia or psychosis, but it is a better chance for a young person to be understood earlier, supported sooner and given more possibilities for how their life can unfold.”
Looking back at her journey, Reichelderfer is most proud that she continued rebuilding her path rather than allowing setbacks to define what she could accomplish.
“Social work taught me to understand people within their environments; child welfare strengthened my commitment to advocacy; and returning to science gave me the tools to ask deeper questions about development, psychiatric vulnerability and the brain,” she said.
Her path may not have followed the timeline she originally imagined, but she said that is precisely what makes the journey meaningful.
“I am proud that I did not simply return to the version of science I originally imagined for myself, but built a much more interdisciplinary and meaningful version of it,” she said.