Chapman joined the Islamic studies subfield within the Department of Religion in 2019. She graduated from Washington and Lee in 2015 with a BA in Religion and worked in biomedical research ethics before moving to the Middle East to study Arabic and Persian. Her research examines the mutual imbrication of medical, religious, and political ideologies in late 19th and early 20th century India. Focused on the life and thought of Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari (d. 1936), Chapman’s dissertation seeks to understand how healthcare was used as a medium through which Ansari’s religious and political ideas were expressed. Her work challenges our assumptions about the boundary between religion and medicine and the role of religious thought in the political lives of Muslim secularists.   

Chapman is a Junior Fellow with the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS). Her work has also been supported by the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion, the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS), and the Program in Political Philosophy.