Taylor Triolo, MD
Distinguished Service Award
Dr. Taylor Triolo is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes, a NIH, K-funded researcher, and serves as medical staff at Children’s Hospital Colorado and University of Colorado Hospital. She has served on the board of the CU School of Medicine Medical Alumni Association for the last 15 years, initially in 2009 as her class representative and more recently as the Vice President, President, and now immediate past President. She supported the board as they developed a scholarship for medical students and innovation community grants to connect students and alumni.
Dr. Triolo's research ranges from the promising area preserving endogenous beta cell function in type 1 diabetes to her role in developing a program to bring leading-edge total pancreatectomy with islet auto transplantation to the University of Colorado. In addition to her role as researcher and clinician, Dr. Triolo is an experienced educator, shaping the next generation of pediatric endocrinologists as the Associate Program Director of the pediatric endocrinology fellowship at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
As an undergraduate Dr. Triolo studied molecular biology at the University of Denver, displaying an early interest in cell signaling. After graduating, Dr. Triolo accepted a position as a research assistant at the Barbara Davis Center, where she decided to pursue a degree in medicine. Before immersing herself in medical school, she balanced her time between her work as research assistant and her aspirations to travel the world. It was during this time that a close friend was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. This intimate connection, the struggles of the disease, and the surprising sense of normalcy, gave Dr. Triolo a view of type 1 diabetes that is at once concrete and nuanced—scientific and personal.
Outside of medicine, Dr. Triolo is a competitive endurance cyclist. This past season, she earned coveted age-group podium places (top 3) at two of the nation's most prestigious and grueling gravel cycling events. Next season, she plans to race in southern Utah and her home state of Colorado.
It's not a singular focus: her work as physician scientist, her commitment to the Medical Alumni Association, her time spent with patients, or her mentorship of the next generation of endocrinologists—but the aggregate, the rich interplay of roles that excites her. Her most valuable assets, she will tell you, are flexibility and resilience—flexibility and resilience in a world of ever accelerating change, marked by unpredictability and astounding opportunity.