​​Teaching Awards & Fellowships:
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Nominated by students for American Unviersity's Achievement Award, Outstanding Mentorship of Student Research and/or Creative Work, 2022-2023
Department of Political Science Best Graduate Student Teacher Award, University of Florida, 2020
Madelyn Lockhart Graduate Student Teaching Fellowship, University of Florida, 2020-2021
Vada Yeoman’s Fellowship, Center for Gender Sexualities and Women’s Studies Research, University of Florida, 2019
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Courses I Have Taught:
Introduction to Global Politics (POLS 1300-001/INST 2816)
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This introductory course provides a survey of the field of global politics (or international relations). It combines classic international relations theories such as realism and neoliberalism and critical international relations theories such as feminist, critical, and postcolonial theories with topics in “real-world” global politics (i.e. gender & conflict, the future of the liberal world order, global governance & climate change, and global health crises, to name a few) to examine the global dynamics and tensions that shape our world. Among the central questions that will drive this course are: How is the international system organized? What are the causes of international cooperation and conflict? What role should international actors play in preventing conflict? What role does gender play in war & conflict? How does queer theory contribute to our understanding of global politics? How are international actors adapting to new challenges such as climate change and cyber warfare? Through a focus on learning various lenses and applying those lenses via specific case studies in global politics, this class will prepare you to think critically about and respond to contemporary global issues. In other words, this course prepares you with the knowledge necessary to respond to contemporary questions about the greater good when grappling with some of today’s most pressing issues.
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International Laws and Institutions (POLS 4100)
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This course will examine the role of international law and institutions in shaping politics across the globe. In addition to discussing the key pillars of international law and organizations and where these concepts come from, we will focus on several other pressing questions, including: what power does international law have to shape state behavior? Why do states join international organizations and comply with international law (or not)? Is international law, in fact, universal? Why does the United States resist the ratification of so many international treaties adopted by other countries? How does international law shape the ability of local communities and organizations to push for social and political change? In addition, we will explore several case studies for an in-depth view of some of the most challenging areas of international law and organizations. These case studies will include, among others, 1) European Union enlargement and Ukraine, 2) international organizations' role in managing pandemics, 3) the United Nations’ role in addressing genocide, and 4) the International Criminal Court's role in prosecuting rape as a weapon of war. Throughout the semester students will practice their writing and presentation skills through a number of assignments. Student will gather information and present on an international organization of their choosing and learn to produce a UN Security Council position paper and draft resolution. Finally, the semester will culminate in a UN Security Council in-class simulation.
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Gender-Based Violence: An International Perspective (SIS 676)
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This course introduces students to the vast array of scholarship, activism, and policies regarding GBV at the international level and examines international and domestic connections. We approach gender-based violence as a theoretical, human rights, and policy issue. Students will be introduced to the various feminist theories regarding gender-based violence and learn to apply various theoretical lenses to understand, analyze, and address gender-based violence. We will explore the transnational dimensions of such violence and human rights responses. Students analyze collective resistance to violence and the legal and social movements surrounding gendered violence. Students will practice applying this knowledge through in-class discussions and presentations and finding scholarly sources related to a topic of interest to them. Students will also demonstrate this knowledge through the completion of a final paper regarding a topic related to gender-based violence of their choosing.
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Frameworks of Comparative and Regional Studies (SIS 672)
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This course introduces students to the diverse theories, concepts, and debates in Comparative Politics and related fields. It includes research on state formation, political and economic development, nationalism, democratization, repression, and contentious politics. Students are introduced to the broad theoretical approaches scholars take to understand and explain political outcomes, including cultural, economic, historical, and institutional theories. Students read and critically discuss a range of comparative scholarship and are introduced to various methodologies of comparative analysis. The course guides students in analyzing scholarship in comparative politics through class discussion, writing book reviews, and constructing a comparative case study analysis of their own.
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Challenges to European Governance and Policy (SIS 676)
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This course focuses on the theoretical and practical problems of integration and the institutions and governance of the European Union (EU), focusing in turn on the institutional structures, policymaking processes, and representative politics as well as the problems for political identity and democratic legitimacy at the European and domestic levels. The course considers the ways member-states have influenced the construction of the EU as both an economic and political entity, as well as the ways the EU has affected the economies and polities of its member-states. Beginning with a historical discussion of the construction of European governance following World War II, the course then examines the institutions of the EU and “Europeanization.” We then shift to a focus on the challenges of European governance in which we discuss the growing far-right and authoritarianism at the domestic level, Euroscepticism, Roma rights, migration, the rise of the “anti-gender” movement, challenges to the EU’s environmental policy and climate change, and the economic and security challenges brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While we talk about Western Europe in this course, we are more interested in that which challenges the EU from its periphery and its center. Thus, this course focuses heavily on an examination of European governance from the perspective of Central and Eastern European states and actors.
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Advanced International Studies Research - Feminist Methods and Gender-based Research in International Studies (SISU 306)
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This course focuses on feminist methodologies for students interested in conducting gender-based research using qualitative data in international studies. Scholars of international studies have developed varied feminist approaches to conducting social research. These approaches share three distinct features: (1) they take seriously the role of gender in power relations; (2) they take seriously the positionality of the researcher vis-à-vis the research; and (3) they ask questions intended to complicate dominant understandings of politics and promote social change. While the research methodology taught in this course takes the concept of gender as central to inquiries of the social and political worlds, it is not confined to questions purely about “women” but rather extends broadly to questions about gender relations, sexuality and power, discourses, intersecting identities, and power hierarchies. The course begins by surveying various feminist approaches to gender-based research, including feminist empiricism, standpoint, and grounded theory approaches. Students will then develop a research question, literature review, and research design for their independent research projects. As students research their individual projects, we will also review examples of feminist ethnography, interviewing, and textual analysis in international studies. By the end of the course, students will have produced an independent, scholarly research project and a presentation.
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Introduction to International Studies Research (SISU 206)
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The course introduces students to dominant methodological approaches to the study of international politics, highlighting the critical link between the research methods and the research question, the trade-offs in different methodological choices, and the practical and ethical implications of different methods. This course provides students with the knowledge and skills necessary to design, conduct, and present a scholarly research project. The course allows students to apply these lessons by crafting a research design on a selected topic that will be developed further in the spring semester in SISU 306. Overall, you should leave the course with an understanding of the mindset of research—what it means to conduct systematic research as opposed to other forms of inquiry and argumentation—as well the ability to understand, evaluate, and conduct research from different methodological perspectives.
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Identity, Race, Gender, and Culture in International Studies (SISU 260)
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Issues of identity, whether avowed or ascribed, fundamentally shape people’s lives and the life of society. In particular, race, gender, sexuality, class, religion, and nationality are determinate identities for many though they are often in conflict with each other. These identities are also dynamic and changing although they often appear to be static and fixed from the outside. This course examines the nature of these identities in a world in transition. The course approaches these identities in their own right but also in an intersectional manner that explores the relationship among them. Culture is critical in the construction and re-construction of identities made more complex in the contemporary era by processes of economic, political, and cultural globalization. The digital age, in particular, introduces new variables in shaping identity that brings together local, national, regional and global actors leading to multiple configurations of self and community. SISU-260 offers a holistic approach to the study of race, gender, culture and identity through a critical interrogation of contemporary issues in international studies.
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Public Policy Analysis (PLS 5843)
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This course provides an introduction to the practice of professional policy analysis. Policy analysts are responsible for defining and framing public problems, identifying and evaluating possible strategies for addressing problems, and recommending evidence-based solutions. The goals of this course are to provide students with an understanding of the role that analysis plays in the policymaking process, to make students critical consumers of policy analyses, and to equip students with the skills necessary to write and present a professional policy report.
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Public Administration Ethics (PLS 5200)​
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This course reviews the theories and application of ethics in the public sector. Ethics is not simply about choosing between right and wrong; administrators are often faced with multiple choices and then they must choose the best alternative. Learning how to evaluate these alternatives is the main focus of this course. Case studies and best practices are examined to improve students' understanding of administrative ethics in public management.
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Politics in Developing Nations (CPO 4034 / PLS 3863)
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In this course we begin by examining the concepts of “development” and “underdevelopment.” We then discuss the various theories of (under)development, focusing on both macro and micro perspectives. Finally, we examine the critiques of the development paradigm. We focus on issues with relevance across multiple world regions, including Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. In this class, students become familiar with the major theoretical debates surrounding aid and development, engage critically with these debates, and grapple with specific policy issues in developing countries.
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Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Women's Studies (WST 3015)
Click HERE to see student's digital feminist zines from summer 2020 and spring 2021 archived by the University of Florida Libraries.
In this introductory course to women's and gender studies students are introduced to the major concepts and theoretical debates within the field. We examine issues that women have historically faced, such as violence, lack of political power, and lack of economic power and autonomy, utilizing various feminist lenses. We then apply feminist theories to contemporary issues and debates. While this course primarily focuses on the evolution of feminist theory within the American context, we also consider transnational activism and how feminist concepts are understood and applied around the globe. The final project in this course is a digital feminist zine.
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Capstone Seminar in Women's Studies (WST 4935)
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This course, required for all Women’s Studies majors, is the culmination of the Women’s Studies degree. Throughout the course we explore past and present scholarship in women’s, gender, and sexualities studies to reaffirm the interdisciplinary nature of the field and highlight the relationship between feminist theory, intellectual practice, and social change. The majority of the semester is devoted to a full-length independent project on a topic of the student’s choosing. The first half of the course is dedicated to exploring feminist epistemologies and methodologies in order to help students prepare their final projects. In the second half of the course, we will be thinking about “feminist futures,” as we explore what becoming and living as a feminist means for student’s future professional and personal plans.