Christopher L. Van Loan

Christopher L. Van Loan is an education researcher whose work focuses on supporting students with emotional and behavioral challenges and improving teacher–student relationships. He is coauthor of Tough But Worth It: What We Can Do to Include Students Experiencing Emotional and Behavioral Struggles (Strategies to Build Stronger Teacher-Student Relationships), published by Solution Tree in 2026. His scholarship emphasizes relationship-based approaches to inclusion, crisis de-escalation, and classroom practices that integrate social, emotional, and academic learning for K–12 students.

Van Loan has coauthored multiple peer‑reviewed articles and chapters on teacher–student relationships, classroom behavior, and interventions for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. These include work on paraprofessionals serving students with emotional and behavioral disorders, narrative reviews of school‑based interventions to enhance teacher–student relationship quality, and contributions to research on the Tools for Getting Along curriculum aimed at reducing risk for significant behavior problems and emotional/behavioral difficulties in elementary classrooms. He has also written about understanding and fostering teacher–student relationships as a strategy to prevent behavior problems in elementary settings.