I believe a central goal of political science education is to help students become thoughtful, engaged citizens: people who can critically evaluate information, connect theory and evidence to the politics unfolding around them, and engage constructively with those who see things differently.
My teaching focuses not only engaging with the classroom materials, but also engaging with each other. I've taught students in introductory political science courses, such as The Science of Politics, to read academic papers, understand their theory and evidence, and question their assumptions and conclusions. I try to make abstract concepts feel relevant by connecting them to current events and encouraging students to draw the line between theory and the politics they're already following.
Equally important is how students discuss these topics with each other. College is often one of the first places students regularly encounter people with genuinely different experiences and viewpoints, and I try to build classrooms where that disagreement is approached thoughtfully rather than avoided. As Head TA for the interdisciplinary Ethics, Public Policy, and Technological Change course, I designed a debate on whether private platforms are obligated to moderate content on their sites — an activity that let students grapple with both the ethical and practical sides of a genuinely contested issue while learning from classmates in other disciplines.
I've had the chance to put this into practice across seven courses at Stanford and BYU, including several Head TA roles, and I'm currently the 2026–27 Graduate Teaching Fellow at Stanford's Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity.
At Stanford, I served as Teaching Assistant in the following courses:
The Science of Politics.
Profs. Lauren Davenport and Avi Acharya. 4.5/5. Winter 2026.
Profs. Jonathan Rodden, David Laitin. 4.8/5. Fall 2023.
Profs. Jonathan Rodden, Jeremy Weinstein. 4.6/5. Spring 2022.
American Political Institutions in Uncertain Times. Prof. Adam Bonica. 5/5. Spring 2024.
Ethics, Public Policy, and Technological Change. Co-Head TA. Profs. Jeremy Weinstein, Rob Reich, Mehran Sahami. 4.9/5. Winter 2023.
At BYU, I served as Teaching Assistant in the following courses:
American Government and Politics. Head TA. Prof. David Magleby. Fall 2016; Winter 2017; Winter 2018.
Introduction to International Politics. Prof. Celeste Beesley. Winter 2014; Spring 2016.