Jamie Jirout, PhD

Jamie Jirout studies what makes people want to know things – and how to nurture that drive in classrooms and beyond. As an Associate Professor in Educational Psychology and Applied Developmental Science at the University of Virginia, her research focuses on curiosity as a core intellectual strength: how it develops across childhood, what conditions support it, and how it shapes meaningful learning.

Her work spans lab and classroom settings, exploring how uncertainty, motivation, and features of the learning environment, such as teacher language and support for autonomy, influence students’ curiosity and engagement. She also studies related intellectual virtues including intellectual humility, open-mindedness, and creativity. Increasingly, this work extends into digital contexts: current projects examine how children perceive curiosity expressed by AI versus human teachers, and how undergraduates learn through interactive AI-powered study tools.

Dr. Jirout prioritizes making her research relevant for educators and translating research findings into practice through collaboration with educators and outreach to practitioner and family audiences. She brings this commitment, and a conviction that intellectual character can be deliberately cultivated, to her teaching and mentoring at UVA, and to conversations about who we become as thinkers in a digital age.

COI Statement: Dr. Jirout has nothing to disclose.