  The Galactic electron density model NE2001 describes the multicomponent
ionized structure of the Milky Way interstellar medium. NE2001 forward models
the dispersion and scattering of compact radio sources, including pulsars, fast
radio bursts, AGNs, and masers, and the model is routinely used to predict the
distances of radio sources lacking independent distance measures. Here we
present the open-source package NE2001p, a fully Python implementation of
NE2001. The model parameters are identical to NE2001 but the computational
architecture is optimized for Python, yielding small (<1%) numerical
differences between NE2001p and the Fortran code. NE2001p can be used on the
command-line and through Python scripts available on PyPI. Future package
releases will include modular extensions aimed at providing short-term
improvements to model accuracy, including a modified thick disk scale height
and additional clumps and voids. This implementation of NE2001 is a springboard
to a next-generation Galactic electron density model now in development.
