Jessica FitzPatrick
- Teaching Associate Professor, Director of DNID
Jessica's Affiliations: August Wilson House, Center for African Studies, Center for Latin American Studies, Digital Media Lab, Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies, Homewood Children's Village, Open Lab, Remake Learning, Digital Narrative and Interactive Design, Ethics and Economics of Expertise: The University in the AI Age
Jessica FitzPatrick conducts research at the confluence of speculative fiction studies, inclusive design, spatial studies, postcolonial theory, and new media creation. Her pedagogy is rooted in the practice of codesign with community and campus partners.
Her most recent joy is the launch of the DISCO (Design an Inclusive Spaceship Collaborative Operation) open educational resource toolkit, which she co-directs and serves as speculative worldbuilding and pedagogy lead. The DISCO toolkit challenges users to design a spaceship custom fit to their alien, human, and animal crew’s blend of needs; in doing so workshop participants explore Universal Design and Inclusive Design as methodologies, thinking about where each methodology can be useful in the everyday practice of design. This creative and (responsibly) playful introduction to accessible and inclusive design counters the narratives that accessibility makes designs inherently “boring.”
As the Director of the Digital Narrative and Interactive Design (DNID) program, FitzPatrick works with DNID students, faculty, and advisors across the School of Computing and Information and the English Department in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. She regularly mentors DNID students as they design and implement projects that unite narrative with code and worldbuilding with interactive interface
FitzPatrick also directs the English Department’s Digital Media Lab (DML), which supports educational programming and creative pedagogy about digital media. Through the DML, she works with graduate and undergraduate lab staff to organize workshops, connecting Pitt campus and Pittsburgh communities of learners with digital media equipment.
FitzPatrick organizes the annual Digital Media & Design Showcase featuring undergraduate and graduate digital and critical making projects. She is a co-creator and organizer of the Pitt Design Jam, which focuses on UX / UI fields and the process of design, and helps organize the Games 4 Social Impact Jam at Pitt. FitzPatrick also serves as a core faculty member on the community anchored STEM Through Games project.
Courses Taught
She regularly teaches courses like: ENGLSH 1922: DNID Capstone in English, ENGLSH 1916: Professional Development in Digital Narrative and Interactive Design, ENGLSH 1201 Digital Narrative Interactive Design, ENGLIT 0512 Narrative and Technology, ENGLIT 1412 Secret Pittsburgh, ENGLIT 0626 Science Fiction.
Education & Training
- Ph.D., English: Cultural and Critical Studies, University of Pittsburgh, August 2017
- M.A., English, University of Pittsburgh, May 2013
- B.A., University of Delaware, May 2009, Magna Cum Laude, Honors Degree with Distinction. Majors: English, Creative Writing Concentration & Anthropology; Minor: History; Phi Beta Kappa member
Representative Publications
FitzPatrick’s current projects include a co-authored authored book chapter about "Co-Designing World SF", and digital and public humanities ventures like the Secret Pittsburgh Digital Guidebook, which exhibits student-generated explorations of Pittsburgh sites and stories. She’s articulated the idea of thirdspace-wielding “Twenty-First Century Afrofuturist Aliens” in the journal Extrapolation, argued for the necessity of community co-design when “Designing Lived Space” in “Rooted AR” and worked towards “Restoring the ‘Lived space of the body’” to the field of critical making in the electronic book review. Her interview with speculative fiction writer Nalo Hopkinson is included in Conversations with Nalo Hopkinson (edited by Isiah Lavendar, University Press of Mississippi, 2023) and her reviews of Tad Thompson’s Rosewater trilogy are published with the Los Angeles Review of Books. Alongside DNID alumnus Lynn Priestley, FitzPatrick co-founded and executive produced the Welcomed by Design podcast, which features conversations with authors, researchers, designers, advocates, and practitioners making the future of design more accessible and inclusive.
Research Interests
Science fiction and speculative fiction studies, inclusive and accessible design, co-design, immersive media technologies, Public Humanities, Digital Humanities, spatial theory, media studies, game design, UX/UI, interactive design, Global / World / Postcolonial literature.
Research Grants
“Design a Spaceship: OER Toolkit for Introducing Universal and Inclusive Design Principles through Science Fiction.” Nancy Tanner Grant for Open Educational Resources. PI. With co-designer Lynn Priestley. Awarded April 22, 2025.
“STEM Through Games”. Funder: Richard King Mellon Foundation. 2024–2025. With PI Dmitriy Babichenko (School of Computing and Information, or SCI), and teammates Jacob Biehl (SCI), and Cassie Quigley (School of Education).
“Design a Spaceship: Inclusive and Universal Design Thinking through Speculative Fiction Workshop.” Pitt OEDI Mini Grant. PI. With co-designer Lynn Priestley. Awarded Feb 18, 2025.
“STEM Through Games”. Pitt Seeds. Funder: University of Pittsburgh Office of the Provost. Dates: 2023–2024. With PI/project lead Dmitriy Babichenko (SCI), and teammates Jacob Biehl (SCI), Tinukwa (School of Education), Veena Vasudevan (School of Education), and Cassie Quigley (School of Education).
Pitt Seed Video Competition award for “STEM Through Games.” With project lead Dmitriy Babichenko (SCI), and teammates Tinukwa (School of Education), Jacob Biehl (SCI), and Veena Vasudevan (School of Education). February 2023.
Pitt Cyber Accelerator Grant, University of Pittsburgh. “Hour of Code and CEC/English Community Liaison and Digital Infrastructure.” To continue building the infrastructure to bring Hour of Code events to 4-10th graders from under-resourced schools in the Homewood neighborhood of Pittsburgh. 2022.
