About

Jessica Thompson is a professor in the Elementary Teacher Education Program (ELTEP) at the University of Washington's College of Education. Her research, teaching, and service are grounded in research-practice partnerships with teachers and school districts focused on educational justice in K-12 science. She develops understanding of critical and cultural approaches to ambitious science teaching and learning through collaborations with science and multilingual teachers, coaches, principals, and district leaders. Dr. Thompson has a background in developing after-school programs that support girls who are racially and linguistically minoritized in schools by exploring their intersectional identities and engagement in scientific inquiry. She has extensive experience teaching high school and middle school science, as well as drop-out prevention courses, in North Carolina and Washington State. Her teaching includes secondary and elementary science methods courses and Culturally Responsive Math and Science Teaching at UW. Her current projects aim to prepare teachers to facilitate asset-based science and literacy discourse in multilingual elementary classrooms and to build professional capital for equitable science teaching through district-wide research-practice partnerships. Dr. Thompson's contributions include developing online tools for novice science teachers, supporting mentor teachers, and fostering communities of practice that promote ambitious and equitable science education.

Research topics

• Cancer research
• Genetics
• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Immunology
• Oncology
• Gastroenterology
• Biology

Selected publications

• Recontextualization in Multilingual Science Teacher Professional Learning

  Science Education · 2025-01-07 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT Examining the contextual nature of teacher professional learning is important for teachers of multilingual learners. Drawing on interview, classroom observation, and informal communication data for two focal dual language elementary science teachers, this qualitative comparative case study examines the situated nature of multilingual science teacher learning and practice processes: (1) What are the intersecting contexts that shape teachers' science learning‐practice in multilingual classrooms? (2) In what ways do these contextual dimensions intersect to create opportunities and tensions in teacher learning‐practice? Data come from a multiyear, multisite project that examines teacher learning and student discourse in science, language, and literacy instruction in dual language and multilingual classrooms. Drawing on the concept of “teacher learning‐practice,” findings show how teachers engaged the contextual challenges of the pandemic, online teaching, and existing programmatic, school, and district structures, as a part of their own teacher learning, through a process of recontextualization . Findings show how the teachers' contexts served as catalysts and moderators in recontextualization, and that generalized district‐based professional development was not meeting the needs of the teachers nor their multilingual students. This study provides empirical evidence for context as a key constituent of teacher learning‐practice, showing how teacher learning cannot exist outside of teachers' instructional practice nor the contexts with(in) which teachers teach. This study adds to the literature calling for teacher professional learning opportunities to be localized to their teaching and learning contexts versus a “one‐size‐fits‐all” approach that is typically used when planning and implementing professional development by illuminating the experiences of elementary science teachers working with multilingual students. This paper is part of the special issue on Teacher Learning and Practice within Organizational Contexts .

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 17 291Be Not Afraid of a Meme: Developing Visual and Media Literacy Skills

  2025-10-28

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Broadening what counts as science: Developing teacher candidates translanguaging stances in their teacher education program towards translingual, multimodal, interdisciplinary and justice-centered elementary science practices

  Teaching and Teacher Education · 2024-06-12 · 9 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Contextual resources supporting the co‐evolution of teachers' collective inquiry and classroom practice after the grant ended

  Science Education · 2024-08-21 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract We explored how various contextual resources accumulated over multiple years operated together to facilitate a team of high school teachers' sustained and agentive learning after a 4‐year research–practice partnership (RPP) grant concluded. Specifically, we examined constellations of resources that promoted the co‐evolution of the teachers' collective inquiry in the professional learning community (PLC) and classroom instruction, focused on supporting students' scientific explanations. We qualitatively analyzed the video/audio recordings of the PLC members' interactions in eight 75‐min PLC meetings (11 h) and a full‐day professional development (8 h) and classroom teaching (34 lessons) over the period of 6 months. We found that the contextual resources accumulated from the historical 4‐year RPP—including a culture of collaborative inquiry, collegial relationships, structures for teacher collaboration, and expertise embedded in individuals as well as co‐developed tools and practices ( cultural, social, structural, and expertise resources )—were important. These resources, in combination with emerging teacher leadership ( leadership resource ) and timely supports, such as school leadership and district‐based funding for sustaining structures for collaboration ( leadership and structural resources ), enabled the teachers to launch and drive their own collaborative inquiry and shift instruction after the conclusion of the grant. The harmonized contexts led the teachers to learn across the PLC and classrooms by engaging in co‐evolution mechanisms—setting goals based on classroom data, reasoning about instructional practices using various representations of teaching, and experimenting on a set of common practices across classrooms. This paper is part of the special issue on Teacher Learning and Organizational Contexts.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Bilingual, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color teacher candidates' translanguaging selves: Working with their multilingual assets and identities as future elementary science teachers

  Journal of Research in Science Teaching · 2024-12-30 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Understanding how racially and linguistically just teacher education programs (TEPs) support the identity(ies) and translanguaging stances taken up by bilingual Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) teacher candidates (TCs) in their professional lives is important both for their development as teachers and for teacher preparation more broadly. Drawing on assignments, classroom observations, interviews, and data from professional learning community (PLC) meetings for three BIPOC dual language bilingual education TCs, this qualitative case study sheds light on translanguaging stance development and the intersecting identities that emerge for these TCs as they learn to teach through the theoretical lenses of translanguaging and raciolinguicized subjectivity. Findings show how the TEP learning contexts supported the development of bilingual BIPOC TCs' translanguaging stances as a critical part of their professional identities as linguistically justice‐oriented science teachers. We argue that their translanguaging stance is a new way of being multilingual and is central to building an elementary science classroom culture with and for multilingual students. This study underscores how bilingual BIPOC TCs' prior knowledge and identities can be leveraged in teacher education and K‐12 classrooms to develop their translanguaging selves. It also supports robust pedagogical preparation and linguistic justice through multilingual transpositioning of science identities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Joining the campaign to center justice‐oriented theory and practice in science education

  Science Education · 2022-09-28 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Use in Solid Organ Transplant Recipients: A Systematic Review

  Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network · 2022 · 76 citations

  • Medicine
  • Internal medicine
  • Oncology

  Chronic immunosuppression in solid organ transplant recipients (SOTRs) leads to an increased risk of a wide variety of cancers. Immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy is indicated for many of these; however, the risks and benefits of ICI use in the SOTR population have not been well characterized. We performed a systematic literature review identifying 119 reported cases of ICI use among SOTRs. Treatments used included PD-1 inhibition (75.6%), CTLA-4 inhibition (12.6%), PD-L1 inhibition (1.7%), and combination and/or sequential ICI therapy (10.1%). The most common cancers included cutaneous melanoma (35.3%), hepatocellular carcinoma (22.7%), and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (18.5%). The overall objective response rate (ORR) was 34.5%, with a median duration of response of 8.0 months. Ongoing response was seen in 21.0%. Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma had significantly better ORR compared with other cancer types (68.2% vs 26.8%; odds ratio [OR], 5.85; P =.0006). Factors associated with improved ORR included increasing time from transplant to ICI (OR, 1.09; P =.008) and preemptive reduction in intensity of the graft maintenance immunosuppressive regimen (50.0% vs 18.5%; OR, 4.40; P =.0088). Rejection occurred in 41.2%, graft failure in 23.5%, and immune-related adverse events in 18.5%. Factors significantly associated with allograft rejection included allograft PD-L1 positivity (100% vs 0%; P<.0001) and absence of tacrolimus in the immunosuppressive regimen (48.7% vs 25.6%; OR, 0.36; P =.019). The most common cause of death was progressive malignancy (64.0%), followed by graft failure (24.0%). Our analysis provides current benchmark data to help inform management of SOTRs with advanced cancers that are reflected by our patient cohort. Biomarker development, more robust datasets, and prospective study of concomitant immunosuppression management may help refine decision-making in this complex scenario in the future. Close coordination of care between the medical oncologist and transplant specialist is encouraged to help optimize treatment outcomes.

  DOI

• Neoantigen-specific CD4+ T cells in human melanoma have diverse differentiation states and correlate with CD8+ T cell, macrophage, and B cell function

  Cancer Cell · 2022 · 137 citations

  • Biology
  • Cancer research
  • Immunology
  DOI

• Four years of collaboration in a professional learning community: Shifting toward supporting students' epistemic practices

  Science Education · 2022-02-01 · 10 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Few studies have examined how professional learning communities (PLCs) engage in collaborative inquiry over multiple years. This longitudinal study explored how a team of high school science teachers collaborated with researchers and district‐based coaches in a PLC over 4 years. We examined (1) how the PLC, which was situated in a culturally and linguistically diverse school that experienced high teacher and administrator turnover, shifted their collective inquiry and instruction from focusing on students' reproduction of knowledge to supporting students' epistemic practices and (2) how researchers and coaches facilitated the shift. The participants' collective inquiry took place on 12 job‐embedded professional development (PD) days where they collaborated to plan, implement, and reflect on lessons over 4 years. The PLC drew on Ambitious Science Teaching principles, practices, and tools. We collected and qualitatively analyzed video recordings of the participants' meetings and classroom teaching on the 12 PD days (96 h) and artifacts. We also conducted interviews with teachers and coaches. Data suggest that early in the project, the teachers focused on identifying and fixing students' misconceptions, but over time they came to focus on supporting students' epistemic practices—collaborative construction of evidence‐based models and explanations. Facilitators—researchers and coaches—played two major sets of roles—challenging teachers' view of students as reproducers of knowledge and engaging in co‐inquiry with teachers to identify and address problems of practice—that functioned complementary over the years and supported shifts in inquiry and instruction. This study provides implications about sustaining productive inquiry and partnership in PLCs.

  PublisherDOI

• Examining Student Work

  2022-01-01 · 6 citations

  other1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant M01RR000037

  NIH · $22.1M · 2009

• NIH Grant K08CA001030

  NIH · $188k · 1988

• NIH Grant R21CA091553

  NIH · $617k · 2003

Frequent coauthors

• Michael B. Atkins

  Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center

  97 shared

• Shailender Bhatia

  University of Washington

  78 shared

• Jeffrey S. Weber

  74 shared

• Scott S. Tykodi

  Fred Hutch Cancer Center

  68 shared

• F. Stephen Hodi

  59 shared

• Douglas S. Reintgen

  University of South Florida

  51 shared

• Howard L. Kaufman

  Akebia Therapeutics (United States)

  50 shared

• Madusha Goonewardena

  Addenbrooke's Hospital

  49 shared

Education

• PhD

  University of Washington

  2006

Awards & honors

• dissertation fellowship from the American Association of Uni…
• Selma Greenberg Dissertation Award