TEACHING
Teaching Experience
Introduction to Research in Political Science
Teaching Assistant
Professor Cesar Benshuni Martinez-Alvarez
PS 15, Department of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara,
Winter 2024
The course teaches basic statistical techniques that are useful for describing and making inferences from data. The course also familiarizes students with R, a widely used and free statistical platform for analyzing data. By the end of the course, students should be able to understand and critique research, and perform basic statistical analyses in R. The goal of the course is to understand the process social scientists use to test theories and discover patterns in data.
Comparative Political Economy of the Energy Transition
Teaching Assistant
Professor Paasha Mahdavi
Fall 2023
This class is an introduction to the political economy of energy and environment through the lens of climate policy and the clean energy transition. We will primarily examine how politics shapes and is shaped by the energy transition, both in the United States and across a variety of sovereign contexts, ranging from emerging to advanced authoritarian or democratic countries and tribal nations. Readings will be drawn from the political science subfields of American Politics, Comparative Politics, and International Relations, along with media articles, case studies, podcasts, and policy memos and briefings from leading energy NGOs and research institutions. There are four learning objectives for this course. First, students will develop a basic comprehension of the energy transition and its political implications. Second, students will gain a detailed understanding of the international relations of climate politics, specifically how political science theories and ideas can be applied to understand global climate agreements and international trade. Third, students will acquire literacy in how business—the fossil fuel industry in particular—plays a role in domestic energy and environmental politics. Lastly, students will learn the tools and skills necessary to critically evaluate climate policies and future political dimensions of the energy transition.
Introduction to Research in Political Science
Teaching Assistant
Professor Leah Stokes
PS 15, Department of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara,
Winter 2023
The course teaches basic statistical techniques that are useful for describing and making inferences from data. The course also familiarizes students with R, a widely used and free statistical platform for analyzing data. By the end of the course, students should be able to understand and critique research, and perform basic statistical analyses in R. The goal of the course is to understand the process social scientists use to test theories and discover patterns in data.
Individual Research
POLS 199RA, professor Paasha Mahdavi & EGAPE Lab
Spring 2023
The goal of the project is to determine the effectiveness of automated text analysis in identifying the disclosure of key indicators according to the US Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) proposed rules. The project is a cross-validation step in an already completed automated analysis of 10-K forms that companies are required to submit to the SEC at the end of each year. The cross-validation step allows to check the accuracy of the automated analysis by comparing it to partially automated and manual coding. Students assist in coding firms' filings according to the SEC's climate disclosure rules and learn about the general use of content analysis (automated and human-coded) as a measurement strategy in political science.
Comparative Environmental Politics
Teaching Assistant
POL 177, Dr. Lorelei Moosbrugger
Summer 2023
