Meet the Director of Assessment and Educational Effectiveness
Vidya Chandrasekaran, Ph.D.
Director of Assessment and Educational Effectiveness works with the Vice Provost for Institutional and Educational Effectiveness to lead the college-wide assessment endeavors for continuous improvement of student learning and for attending to equity-gaps in student academic achievements. The Director provides strategic leadership for the program assessment advisory board (PAAB), works with faculty to implement equity-minded, practical and meaningful assessment, strategically designs funded assessment opportunities, and coordinates with campus partners, such as Center for Equity and Excellence in Teaching to make use of the findings from various assessment activities.
Vidya Chandrasekaran joined the Office of Assessment and Educational Effectiveness as the Director in July 2024. In addition, Dr. Chandrasekaran is currently serving as the Program Director of the Biotechnology Master’s Program and has previously served as the Chair of Biology, Chair of Rank and Tenure Committee and Chair and as member on multiple campus-wide committees including the Strategic Plan steering group, Core Curriculum Implementation Committee and multiple campus-wide search committees.
Dr. Chandrasekaran is a Professor in the Department of Biology. Prior to joining Saint Mary’s College in 2007, she obtained her Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from State University of New York at Buffalo and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Chandrasekaran is an active research scholar in the area of cellular neurobiology, publishing over fifteen articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and regularly presenting her research at regional, national and international conferences. In addition, she has served as a research mentor for over 50 students since joining Saint Mary’s College and the last five of her papers have included Saint Mary’s College students as co-authors. Also, she has been a co-PI on two successful NSF grants that provide funding to help increase diversity among STEM students and develop an undergraduate STEM teacher education program committed to social justice and an NIH grant to study the effects of traffic-related air pollution on Alzheimer’s disease progression.