Shawn Hill researches police-community relations, legitimacy, and police culture through the lens of intergroup communication and communication accommodation. His work aims to foster prosocial outcomes by developing, implementing, and evaluating evidence-based communication strategies that promote mutual trust, empathy and support constructive engagement between law enforcement and the communities they serve.
Shawn Hill is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research uses quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods to examine police-community relations, police legitimacy, and police culture through the lens of intergroup communication and communication accommodation theory. Hill is a National Institute of Justice (NIJ) LEADS Scholar and an Executive Fellow with the National Policing Institute. He previously served on the Community Policing Committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. His scholarly work includes peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and co-editing The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook on Policing, Communication, and Society, an interdisciplinary volume exploring the intersections of policing and communication. He was awarded a Dissertation Fellowship from the NIJ to study intergroup interventions between police and the public and received the 2025 Putnam Interdisciplinary Scholar Award for his cross-disciplinary collaborations. His work has been published in journals spanning communication, psychology, criminal justice, criminology, and policing. Hill holds a B.A. in English from Old Dominion University and an M.S. in Criminal Justice from Arizona State University.