Dr. Jessica C. Hill is Director of the Morgan Teaching & Learning Center and Associate Professor of Psychology in the Social Science and Policy Studies Department at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she leads institute-wide efforts to support effective teaching and meaningful student learning. Her work centers on helping faculty explore practices that align with their strengths while creating active, engaged experiences that promote deep learning. Across Morgan Center initiatives, she brings evidence-based practices into course design, instructional decision-making, and faculty development in ways that fit WPI’s 'theory and practice' culture.
At WPI, Dr. Hill launched Student Consultants On Pedagogical Excellence (SCOPE), a students-as-partners program grounded in the idea that students are equal collaborators in understanding teaching and learning. SCOPE pairs trained student consultants with faculty and academic units as co-creators and "critical friends" during course innovation. In its pilot semester and inaugural year, SCOPE supported consultations with more than 30 faculty members, established two department-level partnerships, and helped a regional transfer partner begin building its own students-as-partners program. Beyond SCOPE, Dr. Hill has established WPI's inaugural AI Pedagogy Specialist role, led the comprehensive redesign of new faculty orientation, and supports the Office of the Provost through the Provost's Fellows for Curricular Innovation program. She provides strategic leadership for the Morgan Pedagogy Champions community of practice, deepening its focus on inclusive teaching and the science of learning, including metacognition. Her work spans campus units including the Academic Technology Center, Undergraduate Studies, Graduate Studies, the Library, the Center for Project-Based Learning, and faculty governance — reflecting a collaborative, systems-level approach to institutional change. Her scholarly work and presentations examine students-as-partners collaborations, academic development, assessment, and faculty support in the AI era. She serves as an Assistant Editor of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, the flagship journal of the POD Network.
Before joining WPI, Dr. Hill was a tenured Associate Professor of Psychology at Utah Valley University, where she earned UVU’s first National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation grant and received UVU’s Presidential Award of Excellence for leadership.
