Jess Taggart

Jessica Taggart joined the Center for Teaching Excellence in May 2020. As an Assistant Director, she supports our SoTL programming and curriculum (re)design work. Previously, she served as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Center, working with Lindsay Wheeler, Assistant Director of Educational Development Research and Assessment. Jess is interested in building communities around teaching and learning, engaging undergraduates in educational development and SoTL, and encouraging scholarly teaching and SoTL at the university and beyond.

From Norwalk, Connecticut, she graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a B.A. in Psychology and English in 2012. She earned her M.A. in Psychology and Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from UVA. During that time, she was a Graduate Student Associate with the CTE, providing consultations and supporting the SoTL Scholars program. She also designed and taught the developmental psychology methods course for undergraduate. Jessica is interested in better understanding how we can develop engaging and effective research methods courses. Her research on this topic has been funded by the Association for Psychological Science’s Fund for Teaching and Public Understanding of Psychological Science. Her disciplinary research examines the consequences of children’s engagement in fictional worlds, such as pretend play, books, and media.