About
Chandra Orrill, PhD
Professor
STEM Education and Teacher Development
Department Profile, Google Scholar
Education
PhD, Indiana University, 1999
M.S., Indiana University, 1996
B.A., University of Alabama, 1993
Biography
Dr. Orrill holds a Ph.D. in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University. She joined the faculty at UMass Dartmouth in 2010 after serving as a Research Scientist at the University of Georgia for nearly a decade. She served as the Chair of the Department of STEM Education & Teacher Development from 2013-2017. Then, she served as the Director of the Kaput Center for Research & Innovation in STEM Education from 2017-2020. Dr. Orrill’s has two major strands of research. The first focuses on how teachers understand the mathematics they teach, how to help support teachers in better understanding that content, and assessing teachers’ understanding. Her work has focused on proportional reasoning for over a decade. The second focuses on supporting elementary and middle school teachers to integrate computational thinking into their mathematics classrooms. Dr. Orrill has published more than 80 journal articles, chapters, and published proceedings in venues that include Journal of Research for Mathematics Education, Mathematical Thinking and Learning, Educational Researcher, and Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education. She has also presented over 100 papers at national and international conferences. Dr. Orrill has also been awarded more than 25 grants with a net value in excess of $8 million, served as Chair on 10 dissertation committees, and mentored over 60 graduate students in research projects.