Laney Taylor is a research assistant in youth development and education. In 2020, she served as a co-project lead on the Kentucky Student Voice Team’s (KSVT) “Coping With COVID-19: Youth Experiences and Perspectives.” In this role, she co-led an intergenerational, participatory research team to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on the academic, social, and emotional development of Kentucky students. Their survey was completed by 10,000 students in all 120 counties. She became a first-generation college graduate in the same year, earning a Bachelor of Arts in politics from Centre College. As a John C. Young Scholar, she explored the political viability of implementing universal pre-kindergarten in Kentucky through interviews with the Kentucky General Assembly. Before Child Trends, she worked on several public health research projects at the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute and the Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center. Laney has deep interest in youth participatory action research, school climate, access to early care and education, and student voice.