Robert C. Chandler, Ph.D. is a retired Professor, author, crisis communication scholar, intercultural educator, and founder of Emperiria Press and Emperiria LLC, a consultancy specializing in leadership development, organizational resilience, and crisis communication. Over a career spanning more than four decades, Dr. Chandler has taught, researched, and consulted across universities, military institutions, emergency management agencies, and private sector organizations in more than 37 countries. He has served on faculties at institutions including Illinois State University and Pepperdine University and has delivered teaching residencies and professional development programs across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Over decades of developing intercultural communication curriculum, designing student competency assessments, and preparing learners for study abroad experiences, Dr.

Chandler has led student sojourners to diverse cultures across multiple continents while building deep relationships with international colleagues, collaborators, and communities around the world. These experiences - in classrooms, in the field, and across cultural boundaries - became the laboratory from which the Inquisitive Alignment Model emerged: a three-layer intercultural framework for moving beneath the surface of cultural encounter to discover the deeper values and worldviews that shape how people see and engage with the world. That model is at the heart of The Inquisitive Traveler. Dr. Chandler is the author of The Marks of a Leader (Emperiria Press, 2026) and the founding editor of the CrisisMasters Leadership Library, an ambitious twelve-volume series addressing leadership, crisis communication, organizational resilience, and strategic communication. The Inquisitive Traveler inaugurates the companion Inquisitive Travel Collection series. Dr. Chandler brings a rhetorician's precision and a storyteller's warmth to everything he writes.

He grew up in West Tennessee and Miami, Florida, and has been shaped by a lifetime of inquisitive encounter with cultures, communities, and conversations far beyond his origins. He lives in Tennessee with his wife Anita.