Dorceta Taylor is the Program Director for the Minority Environmental Leadership Development Initiative (MELDI) at the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment. The three-year-old program is currently hosting the National Summit on Diversity in the Environmental Field. Taylor is also an Associate Professor of Environmental Sociology at the University, where she teaches courses in environmental history, environmental inequality, social theory, gender, and development. She holds a joint appointment in SNRE and in the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.

Taylor obtained her bachelor's degree in environmental studies and biology from Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. She completed all her master's degrees and doctoral studies at Yale University in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the Department of Sociology. She is member of the board of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies' Leadership Council. She is a reviewer for the National Science Foundation, the Morris K. Udall Foundation, and the National Research Council.