He is the only wheelchair basketball player in the U.S. to be a member of the past three Olympic teams. He was recently honored as a member of the all-world wheelchair basketball team. An award-winning video has been produced about his life. The Convocations Lecture Series is presented by the Associated Students of USU and is headed by Arts and Lectures vice president Lindsey Budge. The series' philosophy is to bring outstanding speakers to campus to educate and inspire.
Lectures are free and open to students, faculty and members of the community at large.
Located in northern Utah's Cache Valley, USU's eight academic colleges, School of Graduate Studies and statewide outreach Extension offices provide comprehensive programs to Utah and the world. Heading SDL's portion of the NGSS team is John Kemp, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. According to NASA, the NGSS should discover millions of new cosmic sources of infrared radiation including the brightest galaxy in the universe, the closest star to the sun, every asteroid between Mars and Jupiter that is larger than two miles across and the beginnings of planetary systems beginning to form around nearby stars. SDL brings its experience with infrared instruments to the team, having designed and built infrared telescopes that have surveyed Earth's atmosphere, and having built the infrared instrument aboard NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Explorer that will soon be launched to study nearby galaxies with unusually high rates of star formation. Working with lead investigator Gary Swenson of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Taylor will work on developing detectors to study waves in Earth's upper atmosphere.