As a researcher, teacher, and academic leader, Hill has led numerous efforts that yielded improvements in STEM education.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
A first-generation-to-college student, Hill earned a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry from the University of North Texas and a doctorate in human genetics from the University of Houston. A postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, she served on the faculties of Fairfield and Yale universities before joining the University of Richmond.<\/p>\n
During her 14 years on the University of Richmond faculty, Hill was honored as the Clarence E. Denoon Jr. Professor of Science (2009\u201315) in recognition of her excellence in research and teaching. Promoted to full professor in 2013, she chaired the Department of Biology from 2016 to 2018.<\/p>\n
As a researcher, teacher, and academic leader, Hill has led numerous efforts that yielded improvements in STEM education, making major contributions to the work of three consecutive HHMI grants of more than $3.7 million at UR, the last of which made significant advances in supporting underrepresented populations in STEM.<\/p>\n
In 2012\u201313, Hill served as a Vision & Change Founding Leadership Fellow for the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education. Known as PULSE, the program seeks to stimulate systemic changes within biology departments at all types of post-secondary educational institutions. She is a past recipient of the Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges and the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.<\/p>\n
Her research and leadership to improve STEM education has received significant grant support from the National Science Foundation and the Thomas F. and Kate Miller Jeffress Memorial Trust, as well as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and other sources.<\/p>\n
A major goal of her UR research laboratory was to create an inclusive community of support that would persist beyond her students\u2019 college years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
She was a member of the university\u2019s Terms of Racial Justice Faculty Knowledge Community, an effort to advance public understanding of racial justice. She served on the university\u2019s Pathways Advising Program, which places first-generation students with faculty who have received training and support to serve as effective mentors.<\/p>\n
As a researcher, Hill uses marine and freshwater sponges as model systems to look at the evolution of genetic regulatory pathways that govern the development of animal form and function. Conducted with undergraduates, Hill\u2019s research has been presented and published widely at research conferences and gatherings worldwide and in leading peer-reviewed journals.<\/p>\n
A major goal of her UR research laboratory was to create an inclusive community of support that would persist beyond her students\u2019 college years. Forty-six percent of her research students were from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in the sciences. Thirty-six of her students have been co-authors on 20 of her publications.<\/p>\n
\u201cI consider this form of pedagogical engagement to be my best teaching,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hill is an eminent evolutionary developmental geneticist with a national reputation for dismantling barriers preventing students from thriving in STEM fields.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":118647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11728,1130,10935,11756,11356,11339],"class_list":["post-118646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","tag-april-l-horton","tag-aslaug-asgeirsdottir","tag-clayton-spencer","tag-equity-and-inclusion","tag-stem","tag-the-bates-campaign"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118646"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119257,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118646\/revisions\/119257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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