Chunhua is a post-doctoral associate in the Poincaré Institute for Mathematics Education at Tufts University. Chunhua earned her PhD in science and mathematics education at Tufts University. She also taught physics in middle school for three years and in high school for another three years in Beijing, after receiving a B.S. in Physics from Harbin Normal University (China).

She has previously, as a graduate student at Tufts, participated in three teacher development and research projects, two focused on science education (the Fulcrum Institute and the Inquiry Project) and one about mathematics education (the Poincaré Institute itself). Her dissertation examined how a series of activities focused on quantification of the size and weight of objects, taking into account third to fifth graders’ qualitative intuitions about weight and volume, contributed to the early emergence of the concept of density as a linear relationship between weight and volume. Her current research interests are in how classroom activities can help students go beyond their everyday experience, to experience a wider range of situations and tools for using mathematical concepts, relations, and representations that allow them to understand mathematical concepts from different perspectives.