Jill is an educator living in Somerville, Massachusetts with her wife of 12 years and their 6 year old. She is the Lead Teacher and Project Based Learning Coach at the High School Extension Program, the only alternative public high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she has worked for the past nine years. Jill is a lifelong learner who received her BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1995 and her Masters in Teaching from The Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2014.

Making things and learning by doing have always been central to Jill’s aesthetic and she models this in the classes she offers for students. In 2021, she received state funding to co-design and facilitate a course for high school students that would document and archive student and community stories from their collective experiences in 2020. Since 2018, Jill has also co-designed and co-lead a democratically run course at H.S.E.P. called “Hacking Awesome” where students choose something about school to change to make it more fulfilling and empowering for them.

Jill is also a working artist and musician who can usually be found reading about modular synthesis, creating experimental electronic music or making mixed media collages with her son.