TEACHING

At UCSB, I have taught undergraduate and graduate research methods, negotiations, interest groups, energy, and environmental politics. At MIT, I taught courses on negotiations, public policy, and global environmental science and politics.

At UCSB, I have developed a range of American politics courses. My graduate seminar on Interest Groups in American Politics takes students through canonical work to help prepare them for their comprehensive exams. My course on negotiations draws on recent political science research on the topic, focusing on negotiations in Congress and other political institutions. I have also developed an undergraduate course focused on energy and environmental policy in the United States. This class requires students to understand US institutions and public policy.

In addition at UCSB I have taught both doctoral and undergraduate research methods, which primarily involves teaching students statistics and coding skills. At the doctoral level, I have twice taught an introduction to probability, statistics and regression. At the undergraduate level, I have taught an introduction to research course three times. This course teaches students how to code and analyze data. Although students generally dislike this required class, my evaluations for this course have been very good. Overall, my ratings at UCSB have been excellent, with an average of 1.3 out of 5.0 (1 is best).

As a doctoral student at MIT, I gained significant teaching experience in public policy broadly and environmental policy specifically. I served as the Instructor for two public policy undergraduate courses: Making Public Policy, and The Art and Science of Negotiation. In both courses, students developed skills in policy analysis, understanding both how policies are passed and what happens post-implementation with outcomes. In addition, I served as a Teaching Assistant for three graduate courses on global environmental science and politics, including a practicum at a UN international negotiation in Geneva. These courses were also interdisciplinary, with a mix of engineers, scientists and policy students. Through my experience working with scientist Noelle Selin on these courses, we also co-authored a peer-reviewed article in WIREs Climate Change about the importance of bringing policy literacy into climate science education. I was also the teaching assistant for the introductory doctoral course on research methods. At MIT, I consistently received high rankings from students, averaging a score of 6.4 out of 7 overall (7 is best).

In addition, I have authored academic curriculum on environmental policy, including the mercury treaty negotiation simulation, “The Mercury Game,” published by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, used at over 100 universities worldwide. The game is free to download and use. I have also written a case on energy policy for the Harvard Kennedy School on Gainesville Florida’s feed-in tariff.

In terms of my approach to teaching and mentorship, I use active and experiential learning techniques in the classroom. Students are expected to contribute to class discussions and critically evaluate readings completed before the lecture. Further, I often break up the class into groups, using smaller discussions and negotiation games to allow students to learn from each other and through hands on experience. I enjoy collaborative research environments, and have benefited from working in several lab-style interdisciplinary research groups. I now use this approach myself, co-authoring with doctoral students and providing opportunities for students to present research and receive feedback through my weekly lab meetings, through the ENVENT lab.