I have experience teaching in-person (face-to-face), synchronous online, asynchronous online, and hybrid courses. I also teach research methods and writing in many of my courses at Miami University (**).
I have taught the following undergraduate (and graduate courses, where indicated):
- Introductory Courses
- IR Electives
- Global Governance** (Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024)
- International Organizations (Spring 2020)
- International Law** (Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025)
- with a focus on dispute resolution, human rights law (especially genocide), humanitarian law (‘laws of war’), and outer space law
- US Foreign Policy (Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Summer Sessions)
- Politics of Economic Statecraft (Fall 2023, Spring 2025)
- Undergraduate Capstone: Politics of Weapons of Mass Destruction (Spring 2024)***
- Rising China in World Politics (Fall 2024)
- Comparative Politics Electives
- European and EU Politics (Spring 2021, Summer Session)
- Politics of the Middle East and North Africa (Fall 2023)
- Rising China in World Politics (Fall 2024)
- Research Methods
- Research Methods and Writing for Social Science (Spring 2020, Fall 2020)
*Syllabi are available upon request.
**Includes sequences on research methods and writing
***Also a graduate student course
Games, Simulations, Activities and Assignments
- Coming soon: Strategic Commodity Trafficking Simulation
- Using David Albright et al. (2020) research on illicit trading networks as a key work in the course, students develop a proliferation network with the goal of having as few ‘red flags’ as possible. Students are assigned a country and controlled item, must develop a plan to proliferate that item and must consider the challenges of purchasing, financing, and shipping/transporting the item. Students must think through the logistics and challenges presented by layers of regulation across jurisdiction, the nature of the controlled goods, and how they will both fundraise and pay for the items they are seeking to proliferate.
- Coming soon: Sanctions Design Activity
- Students work in teams to first collect data on their target and then pass their data onto another team. Teams use the data collected by the other groups to design sanctions on a different scenario from the one they collected data on and practice learning about and engaging with various types of data.
- Coming soon: Treaty Design Simulation
- Students receive a policy issue and must develop a treaty that takes into account principles of treaty design and treaty law along with political challenges and realities of complex international relations. Students then present their treaty for feedback to the larger class with Q&A and discussion over ways to improve the treaty.
- Rational Design of International Organizations: I developed this activity during COVID-19 lockdown when I was teaching synchronous online classes in Global Governance and International Organizations for helping students think about rational design of international organizations and how to think as a rational actor about the form and structure these organizations should take.
- For my course on Global Governance and International Organizations, I created a simulation (pre-COVID-19 in class) on interstate conflict and climate change based on Stephen Walt’s Foreign Policy article “Who Will Save the Amazon (and How)?” Depending on the size of the class, students work in teams representing countries on UN Security Council: US and China (two permanent members), and the Maldives, Brazil, Germany, and Zimbabwe. If there are more students, I add more permanent and non-permanent members. Otherwise, the remaining members of the Security Council are considered non-playing ‘characters’ (NPCs) that I play to make the simulation more interesting. Each group receives a packet of preparatory readings on their country’s politics, their countries response to climate change, and the impact of climate change on their country’s domestic and global politics.
- In my courses on US politics, Introduction to international relations, or US foreign policy, I have a student activity and assignment that asks students to investigate and learn about the provenance of everyday goods they purchase and what affects the availability and price of these goods. I use this activity to highlight politics and complexity of supply chains and other issues related to trade and substitution.