Chandra Turpen

Chandra Turpen is an Associate Research Professor at the University of Maryland's Department of Physics. Their work focuses on STEM education reform, particularly in physics education, institutional change leadership, and equity-driven pedagogy. Turpen is closely associated with initiatives like the Departmental Action Leadership Institute (DALI) and the Access Network, which aim to transform academic cultures through collaborative partnerships between students and faculty.

Research interests center on departmental change processes, inclusive curriculum design, and the role of faculty learning communities in sustaining educational reforms. Turpen's work emphasizes systemic approaches to equity, leveraging ethnographic methods and survey instruments to assess cultural shifts in academic departments.

Key contributions include developing frameworks for evaluating institutional change, analyzing stakeholder dynamics in educational reforms, and designing mentorship programs that amplify student agency in shaping academic policies. Their recent work explores how online communities can support faculty implementation of research-based instructional strategies.

Key initiatives include the Access Network - a multi-institutional collaboration fostering equity-focused programs in the physical sciences - and the Taxonomy of Opportunities to Learn (TxOTL) tool for assessing faculty learning community efficacy. Turpen's research spans over two decades, addressing topics from interdisciplinary physics education to macro-ethical reasoning in engineering contexts.