Black History
In The Making
MEET TAYLOR DENISE RICHARDSON
Activist | Speaker | Advocate | Philanthropist | Student | Writer | Volunteer
Taylor Richardson (also known as Astronaut Starbright) is an advocate, activist, philanthropist and speaker. She wants to be a physician, scientist and astronaut.
Taylor’s service and advocacy work continue to have an incredible trajectory that began when she was nine and attended Space Camp in Alabama. Her first fundraiser lead to her own book drive, “Taylor’s Take Flight with a Book.” The effort has collected and donated over 15,000 books within and outside of the United States. Since then, Taylor has sponsored several full scholarships to send girls to STEM and empowerment camps across the U.S.
Youth Advocate and Philanthropist
Taylor is a pacesetter for youth philanthropy and STEM advocacy. With the help of big-time names like mogul Oprah Winfrey, film/tv producer JJ Abrams and actor Chis Pine, and Venture Capitalists Arlan Hamilton and Monique Mosley. Taylor has raised over $250,000 to help girls interested in STEM including sponsoring movie screenings across the US for movies Hidden Figures, A Wrinkle in Time and Captain Marvel.
In May 2020, she raised via GoFundMe over $4000 to aid in childcare for frontline workers for COVID relief. In June 2020, she crowdfunded again via GoFundMe for her Freedom Fund that raised over $17,000 to aid in Black Lives Matter movements across the nation. Also in Fall of 2020 partnered with Bonfire to create tees for ADHD and Black While ___________! to aid in advocacy work against racism and oppression and learning disabilities raising over $2500 and continues to sell.
Between January and March of 2021, she has raised over $29,000 to help get the book The Black Friend to aid in anti-racism and build dialogue in middle and high school libraries across the US. Since raising the funds she has donated 2500 books locally, nationally and internationally reaching 40 states and 40 US embassies and reaching as far as Ghana, Australia and Ireland. She has also donated to her local Jacksonville Public library and donated the book to all 21 of its libraries.
Leadership Near and Far
She is an internationally known advocate for girls in STEM. She is the youngest recipient for the Florida Times-Union Eve Award’s first-time “Aspiring EVE” winner in June 2019. She is a 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 mentee with the nationally recognized Black Girls Rock, Black Girls LEAD conference. In July 2019 she helped fund fees for other Black girls to attend this conference as well. She is two-year delegate for Eighteenx18 delegate along with 39 other youth leaders across the US in their bid to register young people to vote. In the summer of 2019 Taylor registered over 150 youth to vote in Jacksonville, Florida. She has co-sponsored in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 with Alpha STARZ a Back-to-School Jamborees where she helped raise funds in the amount of $4500 for 3,000 local children to receive backpacks and school supplies in Northwest Jacksonville.
Taylor also continues to use her platform with corporations and has spoken at many STEM and women empowerment conferences around the world to push #RepresentationMatters in places like Washington, DC, for March for Science 2016, Ohio for Congresswoman Marcia Fudge’s NEOSTREAM Conference 2018, Ireland’s InspirefestHQ 2018, IBM Think in San Francisco 2019, Ellevate Network in New York 2019, 2021 My Brothers Keeper-Spartanburg and Born This Way Foundarion. She has graced covers of two Scholastic Science magazines in 2017 and 2018 and was 2017 Girl of the Year for Women in Aviation.
Taylor is an alum of the 2019-2020 Class for Youth Leadership JACKSONVILLE, a co founder/officer of The STEAM Squad, an online organization that gets kids involved in science, technology, engineering, math and the arts, a founding member of GoFundMe Community and board member of two non profits Alpha Starz and Girls Rights Org. She has over 2000+ community service hours.
Raising Global Awareness
Taylor has been in local, national and international publications and media outlets, including People Magazine, The TODAY Show, Good Morning America, NBC Nightly News, Good Morning JACKSONVILLE, First Coast News, Action News, and the featured cover of New Moon Girls magazine as it’s 2019 Girl of the Year to name a few.
Taylor is also the recipient of numerous awards and accolades for her literacy, STEM and service work including the 2021 Black Girl Magic award from My Brothers Keeper Spartanburg, 2021 recipient of The Bolles School Presidential Medal, Jason Taylor Foundation 2021 Youth Community Hall of Fame, Arts and Action Census Jr Ambassador 2020, 2020 One to Watch Jacksonville NAACP Image Award recipient, 2020 Girls Inc. of Jacksonville Champion for Girls, 2020 Folio Jax 18u18, 2019 Ebony Power 100 Finalist, 2019 advisory council for Girls Who Code, 2018-2022 Clean and Clear campaign, 2018 BEST (Black Entrepreneur SisTer Society) Teen of the Year, 2018 Do Something Grab the Mic ambassador, 2018 The Roots 25 Young Futurist, 2017 TeenVogue 21u21, and 2017 GoFundMe Hero.
Taylor is featured in the documentary about her advocacy work titled, “ASTRONAUTSTARBRIGHT: Story of a STEM Advocate,” where it has earned numerous awards and in 2019 she was featured in another documentary “Fly Like A Girl,” about girls and women in aviation and STEM fields which is streaming on Hulu. Both doing very well in film festivals across the U.S.
Taylor has also written op-eds for Teen Vogue, New Moon Girls and local Jacksonville paper Florida Times-Union. She is also featured in seven books that promote STEM, representation and girls empowerment. She is currently writing the foreword to NYT Best Seller author of The Black Friend Fred T. Joseph's second book Better Than We Found It and just finished co-writing a picture book about girls and being underestimated.
“I didn’t plan for Astronaut Starbright to blow up. I just wanted to make a difference in my community”
— Taylor Denise Richardson (in The Outsiders? on YouTube Originals)