As for most UCI students, the beach was a major selling point when Taylor Silverman first met their anthropology graduate cohort. "We did a beach trip as a department during the recruitment visit," they said with a laugh. In truth, though, there was a lot more that sold Silverman on coming back to their home state of California to complete their Ph.D. in Irvine.

At Brown University, Silverman earned a bachelor's degree in an interdisciplinary major called science and society, which included elements of bioethics and medical anthropology. As an undergraduate, they did research in neuroscience and psychology as well as anthropology. "These experiences introduced me to the practices of science and scientific knowledge production that I ended up deciding to study anthropologically,” they said.

They found themself fascinated by the ways in which society influences medicine, and vice versa. "As I began to study bioethics, I realized quickly that I wasn't interested in developing prescriptive or universalizing arguments about ethics and morality,” they said. “The goal of my work now is to understand how people navigate difficult clinical decisions in their daily lives, and then how those experiences speak to the broader cultural context. Ethnographic methods and anthropological theories are a really good fit for that."

UCI's department was particularly alluring. "It's one of the few Ph.D. programs in anthropology to offer methodological training, which was particularly appealing to me given my interdisciplinary background," said Silverman. "It's not something that's super common."

And of course, the faculty at UCI were a huge draw. "The department has experts in all of my areas of interest: queer anthropology, gender and sexuality studies, medical anthropology, and science and technology studies. I knew there would be faculty who could provide the rigorous theoretical training and scholarly support I was hoping to find in graduate school," they said. So far, that support network has included professor Eleana Kim and associate professor Mei Zhan, as well as Silverman's advisor, Lilith Mahmud, another associate professor in the Department of Anthropology. Silverman liked that while UCI assigns initial advisors, students are then able to choose their committee later on, once they've gotten to know more faculty. "I think this approach helps students develop more meaningful relationships with faculty," they said.

The intellectual community that Silverman appreciates also includes their peers. "The program has an ethos of collaboration that is often idealized in academia but less often realized," they said. “I’ve benefited immensely from the support and solidarity of other students in the department. I’ve been especially grateful to people further along in their academic careers who have been willing to share their advice and perspectives.”

Building on the public health research they did on the East Coast after undergrad, which focused on LGBTQ+ health, Silverman developed a dissertation examining the everyday practices of medical care for transgender youth. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the UCI Social Justice Fellowship, they wanted to look at complex philosophical concepts such as autonomy, agency, and consent, but in the context of everyday clinical practice and decision making. "This was a really good example of that," they said. "Gender-affirming care is an extended, lengthy, time-consuming process, often involving weeks of conversations, and months of appointments, before a teen makes decisions about treatment with their parents or guardians and health care providers."

Teens, who are thought of as being at an intermediate developmental stage between childhood and adulthood, proved to be particularly interesting subjects to study in this capacity. "My research focuses on the unique tensions that arise during adolescence," said Silverman.

In addition to conducting research with healthcare providers and social workers, Silverman also spoke with the teens and their families to understand their perspectives and experiences on the care that they're receiving.

"It's such a politically charged topic," said Mahmud. "But Taylor was able to earn the trust of embattled doctors, struggling parents, and most of all, of the transgender kids who are too often the objects of political attacks."

Silverman strove to ensure that their research approach was ethical and that it would benefit society and other people, they said. "I think the department helped us develop these skills in the first years of the program."

Mahmud says that's Silverman's strong suit. "The biggest strength of Taylor's research is that it amplifies the kids' own voices, showing just how nuanced and agentic children are in making sense of gender," said Mahmud. "It's truly groundbreaking work in feminist medical anthropology and childhood studies, but it is also a model for what public scholarship across the social sciences could look like."

Silverman will likely wrap up their Ph.D. program in 2026, but they want to continue doing research. "I came to graduate school because I wanted to be able to ask big questions about medicine, morality, and society," they said. "As I consider my future career, I'm committed to continuing to work on these topics and continuing to work with trans teens and their families."

—Alison Van Houten for UCI Social Sciences