Dasia Taylor is one of USA TODAY’s Women of the Year, a recognition of women who have made a significant impact in their communities and across the country. Taylor’s invention -- a medical suture that uses beet juice to indicate when surgical wounds have become infected -- was born out of her equity work, she says. Specifically, she was inspired by research showing that Black people are disproportionately affected by post-surgical complications, including infections, and that oft-repeated diagnosable signs of infection like redness of the skin and swelling don’t appear as easily on darker skin tones. A humanities-focused high school junior Taylor had no background, or interest frankly, in science fairs. But she lives by a simple code: Be curious.

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