Oliver W. Hill, Jr., Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at Virginia State University. Dr. Hill is an experimental psychologist specializing in studying cognition. He received his undergraduate training at Howard University in Washington, DC, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Hill has been working in the area of barriers for minority students to careers in the STEM disciplines for over twenty years, and has been the PI or Co-PI on numerous research projects in this area, and has received over six million dollars in funding from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and the National Institutes of Health. His current research looks at the efficacy of cognitive training to improve working memory functioning and reduce cardiovascular reactivity to stress in African American college students. Hill is also studying ways to improve mathematics performance in elementary and secondary school students. He is particularly interested in fostering the concept of quality education as a civil right for all students.
Hill is a former Fellow and current board member of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, and he has developed several courses infusing contemplative pedagogy into the psychology curriculum at VSU. Hill has been practicing meditation since 1970, and teaching meditation since 1972.
