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Karen T. Taylor is an American Forensic and Portrait Artist who has worked for over a quarter century helping resolve prominent criminal cases for a variety of law enforcement agencies throughout the world. Taylor is also well-established as a forensic art educator, fine art portrait sculptor, and specialist in the human face. A native of Fort Worth, Texas, she spent time in London working at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. She also worked for eighteen years as the Texas Department of Public Safety's first forensic artist. A long term contributor to America's Most Wanted, she has often been profiled on Forensic Files and other reality-based programs. Her textbook, Forensic Art and Illustration, is the widely-acknowledged standard for the field. She is based in Austin, Texas. Read Less

Taylor considers herself a life-long crime victims' advocate and forensic artist, but now also uses her skills in other applications. She creates skull-based faces of the long dead for historical projects for museums, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel and the National Geographic Channel. Her greatest passion these days is a portrait sculpture project honoring the "Good Guys". After years of depicting the "Bad Guys" and their victims, she enthusiastically commemorates in bronze individuals who have made a significant contribution to society...those she calls the "Good Guys". Read Less

As a forensic art instructor for over twenty years at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, Taylor shared knowledge learned in the trenches with the next generation of artistic crime fighters. Credited with coining the term "forensic art" in the early 1980s, her cases have involved a wide variety of challenges and innovative techniques. Her primary expertise includes composite imagery, child and adult age progression, postmortem drawing and forensic facial reconstruction. In the mid 1980s, Taylor pioneered the method of 2-dimensional facial reconstruction, by drawing facial features over frontal and lateral skull photographs based on anthropological data. In 2002, she was the first woman to receive the prestigious Dondero Award from the International Association for Identification. Read Less