TingLan’s program of research explores the intersection of medical education, professional identity development, and the multifaceted challenges faced by healthcare trainees. 

TingLan's work critically examines how structural and systemic issues shape learners’ professional trajectories and wellbeing. Particularly, my work focuses on how students and trainees navigate complex educational and professional landscapes shaped by power hierarchy and evolving social expectations. A central strand of this scholarship investigates medical trainees’ professional acts of resistance, which illuminate how learners engage in subtle and overt responses to injustice, marginalization, and moral distress.

Her additional research trajectory focused on physician trainees’ well-being, with four publications and two current projects examining burnout, retention, and coping strategies among military medical students and residents. 

TingLan received two nationally and internationally competitive grants: (1) 2022 AERA Division I Education in the Professions Research Grant for the project Health Professionals Supporting Trainees’ Professional Acts of Resistance, and (2) the 2023 North America Taiwanese Professors’ Association—Professor Liao ShuTsung Research Grant for the project International Medical Graduates Thriving in the Foreign Lands, which explores the lived experiences and resilience strategies of immigrant physicians navigating new health systems.

She also authored numerous papers examining social-emotional development, aggression, discrimination, and anti-aggression prevention.