Director
Chandra Orrill is a Professor in the Department of STEM Education and Teacher Development where she teaches in the STEM Education Ph.D. program and the MAT program. Before being appointed Director, Dr. Orrill served as part of the interim co-director team of the Kaput Center for three years (2014-2017). For the past decade, Dr. Orrill has been focused on teachers’ understanding of proportional reasoning and how to support teacher learning. More recently, she has expanded to consider how to support teachers in integrating computational thinking into their STEM instruction. Across her career, Dr. Orrill has received over 30 grants totaling more than $10 million. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences.
Grant Support Specialist
Kym Welty
Kym Welty joined the Kaput Center in December 2017. She has many years of grant administration and project management background as well as experience working with schools. In the Kaput Center, she provides pre-award and post-award support to the Research Scientists as well as providing support as a Project Manager for several grants. She also serves as co-Champion of the Kaput Center’s CoderDojo.
If you wish to contact the Kaput Center, please send an email to kaputcenter@umassd.edu.
Past Director:
Stephen Hegedus was the founding director of the Kaput Center. He has been the PI/Co-PI of various NSF-funded and US Department of Education (IES)-funded projects. His work focused on the development and study of dynamic software environments with associated curriculum focusing on classroom connectivity and haptic (force-feedback) technology. This work also involved the professional development of pre and in-service teachers and large-scale integration of innovative technologies into K-12 curriculum. To read his farewell remarks, click here.