Chadia Abras

Director of Institutional Assessment

Chadia Abras, Ph.D. joined the Provost’s Office in July 2019 as Johns Hopkins University’s inaugural Director of Institutional Assessment.  In this role, Dr. Abras collaborates with a variety of institutional stakeholders to support quality student learning by assisting academic programs in developing and refining assessment plans, meeting the goals of defined learning outcomes, and encouraging a culture of learner-centered education.  She plays a key role in ensuring ongoing compliance with standards of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education by promoting institutional effectiveness and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.  Dr. Abras will lead implementation of the University’s first shared Assessment Management System (AMS) as her first major project.  She will also serve as the lead for the SMS users group and a key contributor to the University Council for Learning Assessment. 

Dr. Abras is an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Education where she served most recently as the associate dean of accreditation, assessment, and technology.  In this role, Dr. Abras oversaw reevaluation and rebuilding of SOE’s assessment systems and processes, leading the school through a successful reaccreditation by the Maryland State Department of Education.  A faculty member in SOE since 2011, Dr. Abras’ expertise is in online learning communities, communities of practice, guidelines for success in e-learning communities, learning assessment, and educational technology. She has conducted research and published on heuristics of success for online communities of interest, online learning communities and distance-learning best practices. Dr. Abras has authored book chapters on online communities, distance learning, effective educational strategies and user-centered designs and presented regionally and internationally on distance learning and assessment topics. In 2016, she was awarded the School of Education’s Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Dr. Abras earned her B.A. in Modern Languages and Linguistics from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, M.S. in French Literature from the University of Maryland, and Ph.D. in Language Literacy and Culture from the University of Maryland Baltimore County.