April Hill

Wagener Family Professor of Equity and Inclusion in STEM

Keynote Speaker

April Hill joined the Bates faculty in 2018 as a professor of biology and the Wagener Family Professor of Equity and Inclusion in STEM.  She is dedicated to helping increase racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, gender and other forms of diversity in the sciences, and to improving the college STEM experiences for all students. She currently leads Bates’ Howard Hughes Medical Institute Inclusive Excellence grant initiative and has recently helped her own department innovate and redesign their core curriculum. She also leads and supports efforts aimed at integrating a diversity, equity and inclusion focus throughout all aspects of the institution. She teaches courses and conducts research in the areas of molecular genetics, developmental biology and evolution. She also participates in local and national initiatives to reform undergraduate curricula and remove barriers that prevent students from thriving in STEM.

Professor Hill graduated as a first-generation, Pell Grant recipient, with a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of North Texas. She received her Ph.D. in Human Genetics from the University of Houston. She conducted postdoctoral research in Developmental Biology at Harvard Medical School. Most recently, she was professor and chair of biology at the University of Richmond where she also directed a Howard Hughes Medical Institute funded, and nationally recognized, Integrated Science Experience (URISE) program that engaged students in interdisciplinary and inquiry-based science and math curricula and research while providing supportive and inclusive learning communities.

Professor Hill was the recipient of several teaching awards including the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award and the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Professor Hill’s research program has been supported by grants from the NSF, NIH, and other foundations. She uses marine and freshwater sponges as model systems to understand the evolution gene networks in animal body plans and symbioses.  She frequently publishes with her undergraduate research students, many of whom also come from backgrounds underrepresented in STEM.