Dianne Woodard Taylor

Dianne Louise Woodard passed away on Tuesday, May 17, 2022 after a prolonged illness. Dianne was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina on June 20, 1948, the daughter of the late Barney Paul Woodard and Annie Louise Sugg. Her father served in the North Carolina Legislature. She graduated from Princeton High School in Princeton, NC, attended North Carolina Wesleyan College and graduated and with a BA in Zoology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1969. She obtained a MS degree in the field of Genetics from North Carolina State University in 1971.

While earning her Masters degree, she met and subsequently married her husband of 51 years, Kenneth Allen Taylor. The couple moved shortly thereafter to Berkeley, CA where he pursued a Ph.D. degree in the specialized field of Biophysics while she obtained a technician’s position with Dr. MaryAnn Williams and later Dr. Rosemarie Ostwald, both of the Dept. of Nutrition at U. C. Berkeley. Her work involved studies in fatty acid and cholesterol metabolism. She took a hiatus from research between March 1976 and September 1987 during which time her two children were born, Jesse Brian Taylor, in 1976 in Berkeley, CA, and Whitney Leigh Taylor, in 1981 in Durham, NC. She returned to her scientific life in 1987 by securing a technician position with Dr. Melvin Lieberman of the Dept. of Physiology at Duke University Medical Center. In September of 1988 she joined her husband as his Laboratory Manager first at the Department of Cell Biology at Duke University Medical Center and later moving with him in 1995 when he took a faculty position in the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University.

In her role as Laboratory Manager, Dianne applied her particular skill to the problem of specimen preparation for the students and postdocs that worked in the lab to produce three dimensional (3-D) images of individual proteins and subcellular structures that constituted the main research of the lab. Her almost unique skill was persuading protein molecules to form extraordinary highly ordered two dimensional arrays on lipid monolayers that were necessary at the time for 3-D imaging using an electron microscope. She was one of the few scientists in the world who had mastered this technique. One of these arrays provided the answer to a long-standing question in how muscles relax.

Dianne later applied her skills at specimen preparation at another long-standing question in muscle structural biology, how one of the two main filament systems in muscle are constructed. This work provided an answer to a 38 year old controversy over how these filaments were built and later facilitated a 3-D image of this filament at atomic resolution. She was coauthor on 27 peer reviewed publications in the scientific literature.

Part of her duties as Lab Manager was training graduate students in the “art” of making specimens for electron microscopy. She is remembered as being both patient and strict, patient in explaining and demonstrating to students how certain things were done, and strict in keeping the laboratory well organized and clean. The techniques she had mastered required a high level of skill, which not all students readily mastered.

Dianne loved travel, even under difficult circumstances, which frequently occurred when traveling with young children. She was privileged to not only travel to foreign countries but to also live in those countries, spending four years in England with her husband and young son Jesse Brian Taylor, who was born just prior to her moving there with her husband. They travelled extensively throughout England, France and Greece during those four years. She returned with him again in the summer of 1985 this time with both her children.

Returning to the US in 1980 and setting up home in Durham, NC brought a return to Dianne’s participation in the periodic family reunions that were characteristic of rural North Carolina family life. Dianne’s parents lived next door to two of her mother’s brothers. That meant family reunions at Christmas, Thanksgiving and other special occasions always involved large numbers of participants. Dianne’s parents also owned a cottage at Atlantic Beach, NC which was the focus of summer activities with family for many years.

Dianne also liked to cook. This ability, or intuition, contributed to her skill at working out complex specimen preparation procedures at her job. One characteristic of her as a hostess was the tendency to prepare something, if not everything, the first time and present it to her guests, who were unwitting “guinea pigs”. This characteristic seemed to never fail her, but rather brought out the best in her culinary skills.

Dianne liked to sing and participated for many years in the choir at Saint Paul’s United Methodist Church in Tallahassee. She purchased a Charles M. Steiff player piano and played on it every Sunday after Church. She loved many kinds of music, particularly Irish Folk Music and 60’s Soul Music.

Achievement of the status of “empty nester” brought with it increased travel opportunity. One such trip involved an 11 month sabbatical with her husband at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA in 2002 followed by another sabbatical in 2011 at the University of Vermont. International trips she made with him include Japan in 2001, South Africa in 2002, Italy for a conference in 2006, China for a conference in 2010, England for a workshop in 2012, England and Ireland in 2013, a river cruise up the Danube in 2016, and in 2017 to Barcelona, Spain, the latter being the last international trip she would ever make.

Dianne had a full life. She came from a large and loving family. She had a devoted husband, raised a pair of wonderful children of her own, and trained numerous graduate students, who collectively form her scientific children. She travelled widely and lived abroad. Until the last few years which were marred by COVID-19 and her illness, she was active in her church. Though her last years were impacted by an incurable disease she remained optimistic and never became embittered at what life had dealt her. She will be missed.

She is survived by her husband Kenneth Allen Taylor, son Jesse Brian Taylor, both of Tallahassee, FL and daughter Whitney Leigh Taylor and husband, Nathan Murdock, of Greensboro, NC; siblings Barney Paul Woodard Jr. (Susan) of Millers Creek, NC, Michael Sugg Woodard (Linda) and sister Joy Elizabeth Woodard MacLeod (Bruce) both of Raleigh, NC. A visitation will be held at Culley's MeadowWood Funeral Home on 1737 Riggins Road, Tallahassee, FL on Wednesday, May 25 at 5:00 pm. Funeral services will be held at Saint Paul’s United Methodist Church at 11:00 am on May 26, 2022.