Dr. Michelle Taylor is the Acting Commissioner of Health of the Baltimore City Health Department. In this role, Dr. Taylor leads the health department’s four divisions and over 800 employees, who provide education, regulation, and treatment with the goal of improving community health. With a budget of roughly $200 million, the Baltimore City Health Department provides expertise in population health, epidemiology, environmental health, maternal and child health, TB elimination, healthy food access through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and Commodities Supplemental Foods Program, older adult services, sexual health treatment and counseling, infant mortality reduction, and public health emergency preparedness and response.
In her previous role as Director-Health Officer of the Shelby County Health Department, Dr. Taylor led the operations of the Shelby County Health Department, which is responsible for the delivery of public health services, enforcement of applicable health codes and ordinances of Shelby County and applicable regulations of the Tennessee Department of Health.
Dr. Taylor is also a Colonel, and Residency-Trained Flight Surgeon in the Tennessee Air National Guard. Dr. Taylor served on Active Duty for Operational Support and Statutory tours as the Credentialing and Privileging Branch Chief and the Division Chief for Aerospace Medicine in the Office of the Air National Guard Surgeon General, from 2019 to 2021. From 2014 to 2016, Dr. Taylor, a pediatrician, was Associate Medical Director and Deputy Administrator for Maternal and Child Health at the Shelby County Health Department, in Memphis, TN. In this role, she was responsible for the overall management of Maternal and Child Health Programs (MCH) and oversaw programs geared toward providing services to under-resourced families through home visitation, case management, and outreach education.
Dr. Taylor received her undergraduate degree from Howard University in 1997, her medical degree from East Tennessee State University, James H. Quillen College of Medicine in 2002, completed her pediatric residency at East Tennessee State University/Johnson City Medical Center and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center from 2002-2005, and earned her Master of Science in Epidemiology degree from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in 2009. As a C. Sylvia and Eddie C. Brown Community Health Scholar, she received her Doctor of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2015. In 2018, Dr. Taylor completed her Master of Public Administration degree from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government as a Commonwealth Fund Mongan Fellow in Minority Health Policy.
Michelle has two children, Malik (19) and Ella (11), and loves traveling to new places, baking, walking, and reading.