Dr Tayler graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University in 1993 with a degree in Sports Science and completed his PhD at the same institution in 1998. He then spent time travelling and working in Australia, including a postdoctoral research fellow post at the University of Tasmania. Dr Tayler joined Teesside University in 2001.

Dr Tayler's main teaching responsibilities include motor control and learning and decision making and expertise in sport & exercise at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Dr Tayler's main research interests currently revolve around the role of reinvestment in skill acquisition and the nature of expert-novice differences in sport. How performers acquire movement capability in sports and the role of sensation seeking in ‘risk takers’ also features in the research he is undertaking with his PhD students, details of which are shown below:

• Daniel Douglass (PhD candidate): ‘Psychological processes involved in skill acquisition of action sports’.
• Matthew Scott (PhD candidate): ‘The effect of motor imagery during action observation on motor execution’.

Dr Tayler also has expertise in research ethics governance having served on university and departmental ethics committees for a number of years. Dr Tayler is a member of the Association for Research Ethics and has attended workshops and conferences as part of his CPD.

Dr Tayler has worked with local sports clubs helping coaches and sports science staff to analyse various aspects of sport performance including expert-novice differences and skill acquisition.