Teaching

My teaching experience includes serving as instructor of record, graduate student section instructor, supervisor, and consultant. I have taught courses in sociology, women’s studies, and psychology focusing on gender, sexuality, social science research methodologies, and feminist perspectives on science. My teaching is consistently ranked in top quartile university-wide, according to quantitative metrics collected by University of Michigan’s registrar office.

A full teaching portfolio including syllabi, example assignments, evaluations, and evidence of teaching effectiveness is available upon request.

Outside the classroom, I have conducted workshops for diverse groups of graduate students and professional researchers on qualitative analysis software, mixed-methods research design, integrating in-depth interviews in public health studies, and utilizing sexuality data sources. I have trained and supervised undergraduate student engaged in research through two programs at the University Michigan: Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) and the Sociology Undergraduate Research Opportunities (SURO) program. These programs are critical interventions as they give first-generation and historically underrepresented students equal access to research experience and mentorship. I am the proud recipient of Michigan Sociology’s 2016 annual student-nominated outstanding graduate mentor award.

Because I value effective and meaningful teaching, I completed two types of supplemental training in my first years as an instructor. I earned the Graduate Teacher Certificate from the University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT). This required completing pedagogical coursework, participating in seminars on topics such as crafting assignments and facilitating discussion, teaching an upper-level writing course required of advanced undergraduates, working closely with a faculty teaching mentor, and receiving teaching evaluations. I also completed CRLT’s Preparing Future Faculty program, a five-week workshop about inclusive teaching, course design, and research on how students learn. Most recently, I am working on expanding my expertise in anti-racist pedagogy—to decolonize the canon, bringing the urgent reckoning with the living legacies of white supremacy in the classroom and creating an inclusive learning environment—and the pedagogy of virtual instruction and online learning in recognition that the pandemic is permanently transforming higher education.

College has the potential to be an equalizing force in society. As social scientists, we also know that college can reproduce existing inequalities and maintain social stratification. At the core of my teaching philosophy is the recognition of the transformative power of becoming aware of issues of privilege, oppression, equity, and social justice at every level. The classroom can be a microcosm of society where students can evaluate, engage, and intentionally construct their environment. Coursework can challenge students to bring these ideas out of classroom and into the rest of their lives. It is critical that students develop social constructionist ways of seeing the world, and the central measure of my teaching success is to witness students develop a personal praxis: students unite theory and practice as they develop their individual sociological imagination. Deep engagement with sociology, this personal praxis—subtly or powerfully—shifts how they understand and engage in society.