Kathleen C. Taylor

Who is Kathleen C. Taylor?

Kathleen C. Taylor is a chemist who won the Garvan–Olin Medal in 1989, and is notable for developing catalytic converters for cars. She currently works at Columbia University and consults for the United States Department of Energy.

Taylor attended Douglass College at Rutgers University, earning a bachelor's in chemistry in 1964; she completed her Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1968 at Northwestern University. She did postdoctoral research at the University of Edinburgh and then joined General Motors in 1970. Her work at GM on catalytic converters helped reduce pollution from car exhaust, following work done earlier by Eugene Houdry. Taylor at GM improved on existing catalytic converters to convert nitric oxide into nitrogen, instead of ammonia, a toxin to humans.