Advising Philosophy

I have a strong commitment to guiding my students to become autonomous scientists. When students who have yet to develop concrete research questions or working hypotheses approach me seeking advice on cutting-edge quantitative skills, I often encourage them to step back from any methodological issues and to become familiar with key debates and theories in their sub-disciplines in order to identify a significant knowledge gap they could fill. I believe that methodological frameworks often constrain graduate students’ scholarly pursuits and lead them to become easily satisfied with a simple application of new analytic approaches to the data they collect. Certainly, without well-developed, theory-driven, research questions, the use of innovative techniques does not necessarily make a thesis or dissertation novel. Of course, mastering various advanced quantitative techniques is one of the crucial steps in earning a degree. However, I have a firm belief that a professor, as an advisor, should urge his or her graduate students to delve into current mainstream research trends and to seek ways to challenge and modify the existing theories or to develop a new one. To aid this process, I am deeply engaged when my students write literature reviews and proposal drafts. In order to spark students’ interests and to provide incentive to use critical thinking skills, I ask students to synthesize several, seemingly discrete pieces of geographical information to address or develop questions that may be of direct interest to both academia and the general public.