Delaram Totonchi

Delaram (Dela) Totonchi is a research assistant professor with a background in educational and social psychology. She works with Motivate Lab within the Center for Advanced Studies of Teaching and Learning, where she also served as a research scientist for five years. Her scholarship lies at the intersection of three main areas: (a) understanding how students’ motivation, their internal responses to the questions “Can I do this?” and “Do I want to do this?”, shapes their achievement behaviors, decisions, and outcomes; (b) examining the sociocultural and contextual factors that impact the well-being and academic success of students, particularly those from traditionally underrepresented groups; and (c) improving measurement practices in educational and social psychology. In this work, she collaborates on designing, implementing, and evaluating interventions aimed at strengthening students’ motivation, especially in STEM disciplines where difficult gateway courses and pervasive stereotypes can undermine the motivation and achievement of marginalized students. Drawing on her expertise in data analysis, Totonchi also conducts a range of psychometric studies on measures of motivation and related constructs to ensure that findings are valid, reliable, and trustworthy.

Originally from Tehran, Iran, Totonchi is a fan of Persian cuisine and desserts, especially saffron ice cream. Having experienced the transition to graduate school in the U.S. herself, she values the ways in which positive academic and identity-based experiences foster students’ sense of belonging, motivation, and academic success.

Ph.D., Old Dominion University, 2021
M.S., Old Dominion University, 2015
B.S., Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran, 2012