Rate My Professor Fatma Selampinar

Fatma Selampinar is a Professor in Residence in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, where she has taught since 2003. She currently serves as the UConn Early College Experience Chemistry Faculty Coordinator and as faculty director of the Global House Learning Community. Selampinar obtained her B.S. in Chemical Education and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemistry from Middle East Technical University in Turkey, specializing in polymer and physical chemistry. During her Ph.D. studies, she held a TÜBİTAK fellowship at the University of Florida, and subsequently conducted postdoctoral research there focusing on electroactive polymers and their applications in controlled drug and biomolecule release.

Dedicated to chemical education, Selampinar teaches introductory chemistry courses to science and non-science majors. Since the mid-2000s, she has worked extensively with Connecticut high school students and teachers, organizing hands-on events such as annual Chemistry Lab Days and virtual chemistry experiences to introduce college-level labs and research topics like photoswitching. She co-organizes Molecular Quantum Days, an outreach program funded by NASA’s Connecticut Space Grant Consortium, featuring lectures, demonstrations, and experiments in quantum chemistry for high schoolers. Additionally, she develops workshops and curriculum modules integrating quantum science into high school chemistry. Her scholarly contributions include peer-reviewed articles such as “Teaching Chemistry in the Time of COVID-19: Memories and the Classroom” (Journal of Chemical Education, 2020), “Intercultural Competence for International Teaching Assistants: Embracing Cultural Differences for an Improved Inclusive Undergraduate Student Learning Experience in Chemistry” (Journal of Chemical Education, 2022), and “Low Band Gap Fused Bicyclic Polymers with Heteroatoms Se and Te” (ACS Omega, 2026). Her research on conducting polymer composites has garnered over 430 citations.