Hilary Sweatman

Hillary graduated from the University of Toronto with a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience and psychology, and is currently working on her Ph.D. in neuroscience at McGill University under the guidance of Professor Xiaoqian Chai. She is also a Vainer Scholar and a Science Education Fellow (SEF) with the Office of Science Education (OSE) in the Faculty of Science at McGill. As a senior SEF, Hilary has contributed to numerous OSE projects, including participating in the design and administration of the SciLearn neuroscience-based undergraduate student learning enhancement program, help- ing to run the OSE seminar series and events, and providing assistance for science education research projects.

At McGill, Hillary plays an instrumental role in running the SciLearn orientation and peer collaboration program. This student-centered program aims to help incoming students tran-sition to learning science at the university level. Hillary, is also a key contributor to the SciLearn Instagram program to dispel misconceptions about how the brain works. For this program, she developed content about neuromyths and shared it on Instagram as short videos. This work is being presented at The Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education conference in Prince Edward Island this year. Hillary’s contribution to research with OSE is also reflected in another presentation for the International Society of the Learning Sciences conference, where she will showcase the use of machine learning to under- stand how undergraduate students succeed in the first year.

All of Hillary’s work exemplifies her dedication to the study of teaching and learning as well as an intense desire to enhance STEM education.