Julia Lang, M.S.

Julia Lang, M.S., is a Professor of Practice and the Associate Director of Career Education and Life Design at the Taylor Center. In this role, Lang supports students in identifying their changemaker paths – where their academic interests and career aspirations intersect with a commitment to make positive social impact throughout their lives.

Lang was integral in the launch of the Taylor Center as the inaugural staff member in 2014. In 2015, she founded Taylor Your Life, a course that empowers students to find changemaking careers. Since then, she has reached over 8.000 students, trained 18 instructors in life design, served as a coach for Stanford University’s Life Design Studio, and has consulted with several other colleges, universities, and K-8 schools about the future of work and embedding life design into their curriculum. Lang’s Taylor Your Life curriculum is available open source for any educator and is used in over 75 universities and colleges worldwide.

In 2019, Lang designed and launched Taylor Your Tulane. This one-credit life design lab uses design mindsets to teach first-year students how to create a Tulane experience that is uniquely suited to their interests and curiosities.

She also created and leads TYL4Grads, a 5-week changemaking career development lab, to support graduate and professional students in designing a meaningful life after graduate school.

At the Taylor Center, she also oversees the Changemaker Institute. This semester-long social venture accelerator for graduate students deepens students’ understanding of social issues, connects them to local mentors and experts, and equips them with entrepreneurial tools to create a social enterprise.

Since 2017, Lang has coached three international cohorts for the Ashoka U Changemaker Commons. She is highly involved in the Ashoka U community of practitioners embedding changemaking in higher education around the world.

In her work at Taylor, Lang incorporates her diverse interests in student development, experiential education, civic engagement, social justice, positive psychology, design thinking, and health and wellness.

Lang has a B.S. in Human Development from Cornell University, and a M.S. in Education from Oregon State University. In Oregon, she helped launch the Center for Civic Engagement and developed service-learning trips and programs throughout the Northwest. Previously, she led community engagement curricula and programs with the Civic Leadership Institute at the University of California, Berkeley; served as House Director in iHouse, a residential living center for 60 international students; and led transformative experiential gap-year programs for American students throughout Central America, South America, and Southeast Asia with National Geographic Student Expeditions, Carpe Diem Education, and Rustic Pathways.