Teaching
Teaching & Advising
I teach undergraduate and doctoral courses in the Department of Government on American political behavior, local politics, and qualitative and mixed methods.
GOV 94st · Undergraduate Seminar
The Politics of Place
This seminar explores the bidirectional relationship between place and politics in the United States: how does politics make place, and how does place make politics? The first half of the course examines work in political science and sociology on how public policies have contributed to residential segregation, spatial inequalities, and place-distinctiveness. The second half considers how distinct places produce distinct political behaviors and identities among their residents. Students critically evaluate the literature with an eye toward developing an independent research project, culminating in a research paper on a topic of their choice.
GOV 62 · Undergraduate
Research Design, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods
This course introduces students to the principles and tools of qualitative research in political science and prepares them to undertake original research for their senior theses. It focuses on issues of research design and methodological application—causal inference, theoretical generalizability, conceptualization and measurement, comparative research design and selection bias, and mixing methods—alongside specific tools including field and natural experiments, process tracing, archival research, interviews, and ethnography. Most weeks pair methodological readings with an exemplary empirical study, and students build toward an original research prospectus of their own.
GOV 2305 · Doctoral Field Seminar
American Politics Field Seminar
This seminar introduces doctoral students to the major themes and some of the best scholarship in the political science literature on American politics. The readings form the core of students’ subsequent reading lists for major and minor general exams. Beyond close, critical reading and discussion, the course helps students make the transition from consumers of scholarship to producers—identifying important but neglected questions and the theoretical and methodological approaches suited to answering them—through weekly memos and an analytical literature review on a topic of the student’s choosing.
Advising
Working with students
I advise undergraduate thesis writers and graduate students working on American political behavior, urban and local politics, political sociology, and qualitative and mixed-methods research. Prospective advisees are welcome to be in touch.
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