Courses taught:

GH750: Sex, Gender, Sexuality, Power and Inequity. Boston University School of Public Health

This course is the foundational course for the Sex, Sexuality and Gender Certificate. This course explores the socio-cultural, economic and political contexts in which people live their lives and how these, and local and large-scale structural forces, including inequity, gender discrimination, racism, and marginalization, have an impact on health and development. Course readings and discussions examine how these forces constitute immediate and fundamental risk factors and must therefore be considered and addressed as part of an effort to improve public health.

PH720: Individual, Community and Population Health. Boston University School of Public Health

This course lays the foundation for future work in program design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation by building the knowledge and skills necessary to improve the health of individuals, communities, and populations. It introduces a framework for thinking about health determinants using a variety of theories and approaches for understanding health and health behaviors that draw on psychology, sociology, anthropology, environmental health, and health law concepts and theories; and various ways to change health behaviors and promote health. Working individually and in groups, students use conceptual frameworks such as the Social Ecological Model to identify public health problems, select target audiences, and propose intervention strategies based on an assessment of the situation. Syllabus available on request.

SOC 201B: The Sociology of Big Data, Privacy, and Surveillance. University of Washington, Department of Sociology

People are generating more data at a greater rate than ever before. Every Facebook “like”, every phone call, and every online search provides a documented digital trace of what we, as individuals and as a collective, are thinking and doing every minute of the day. While the availability of these digital traces has opened a new era of social research, it also poses serious questions regarding individual privacy and the ethics of human subjects research. This course is designed to address these issues and help students develop a well-rounded understanding of the benefits and challenges of using ‘big data’ for social science research. It addresses the scope and breadth of big data and highlights the challenges and opportunities these data present for social inquiry. It also highlights the ethical boundaries of human subjects research and how the availability of digital traces call into question these standards. Please find the syllabus for this course here.

My teaching philosophy: 

I believe that encouraging students to creatively expand upon core course concepts leads to better retention. Likewise, facilitating hands-on engagement with challenging tasks and ideas helps students feel more capable and engaged throughout the trajectory of a course. My approach to teaching emphasizes self-structure and independence and recognizes four distinct stages of learning: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation (see: Kolb, 1984). By placing creativity on par with recall in regard to curriculum objectives, I seek to provide an interesting and engaging classroom experience that helps foster students' commitment to lifelong learning.

Because social science courses often require students to engage in productive dialogue regarding sensitive topics, inclusivity is an essential component of course planning. I recognize that students may arrive with prior knowledge and formative experiences regarding social life, and that these experiences may be extremely personal and/or contradict the experiences of others. I am careful to remind students through my syllabus, course design and lectures to a.) be thoughtful about distinguishing between empirical disagreement and contradictory experiences and b.) think critically about responding to others with whom they disagree in a manner that is productive and respectful. I also seek to provide course material from researchers of diverse backgrounds and perspectives as a means of combating historic inequity in academic research.

Seminars taught:

I am experienced R coder and have led or co-led seminars or tutorials on R use for the University of Washington Department of Sociology, and the Population Association of America Annual Conference. One of my tutorials - using R to collect data via APIs, which I presented at an R Ladies Seattle in 2018 - is available here.

Teaching assistant for:

  • SOC 376: Drugs and Society. University of Washington, Department of Sociology. Instructor: Jonathan Wender.

  • SOC 110: Introduction to Sociology. University of Washington, Department of Sociology. Instructor: Susan Pitchford.

  • SOC 371: Criminology. University of Washington, Department of Sociology. Instructor: Ross Matsueda.