Teaching

Teaching Statement

My teaching and mentorship abilities would enrich and expand the Department of Political Science program both substantively and methodologically. I possess five main assets I can bring to the Department:

• methodological training both at Michigan (political methodology, election forensics, survey methodology) and Stanford (machine learning, causal inference, artificial intelligence - natural language processing and convolutional neural networks);

• the ability to teach a range of comparative politics courses that can be tailored to the post-Soviet region;

• proven experience as a teacher for an advanced graduate level quantitative methods course and undergraduate comparative and world politics at the University of Michigan;

• the ability to teach survey methods for developing countries and teach courses on election forensics methodology;

• an intuitive approach to quantitative methods that complements and deepens a classic methods sequence by emphasizing the role of theory and survey methodology.

My goal as an instructor is to teach my students to approach the topic of election fraud – or any topic – like political scientists. I want them to rely on data rather than intuition; to distinguish pattern from idiosyncrasy; to view events as probabilistic rather than deterministic; and to be critical consumers of popular political analysis. In other words, I want my students to understand what we know about politics, what we don’t know (even though the pundits might say we do), and how we go about reaching these conclusions. In a lecture context, this means presenting the best research in the field, explaining what makes it credible and highlighting what still remains to be studied. In a seminar, it means training students to read and assess the quality of research for themselves. In my classes I also encourage students to push themselves by constantly testing the boundaries of what is possible, knowable, and doable. The constant expansion of knowledge and ability is for me the unifying feature of both research and learning, and my goal is for students to experience this kind of expansion and enjoy it.

Teaching Experience

Lecturer, University of Michigan
POLSCI 300: Quantitative Methods of Political Science
Spring 2017

Lecturer, University of Michigan
POLSCI 389: Russian Politics
Spring 2016

Visiting Lecturer, European University at St. Petersburg
Introduction to Quantitative Methods
Fall 2012, Spring 2014

Visiting Lecturer, Academy of Public Administration, St. Petersburg
Introduction to Game Theory
Winter 2014

Graduate Student Mentor, University of Michigan
POLSCI 993: Graduate Student Instructor Training
Fall 2015

Teaching Assistant, University of Michigan
CSCS 391: Introduction to Modeling
Fall 2013

Teaching Assistant, University of Michigan
POLSCI 160: Introduction to World Politics
Fall 2011

Teaching Assistant, University of Michigan
POLSCI 140: Intro. to Comparative Politics
Winter 2011,2010

Teaching Assistant, University of Michigan
REES 395: Survey of Russia
Fall 2009

Teaching Assistant (Grader), University of Michigan
POLSCI 317: Courts, Law, & Society
Winter 2015, 2016

Teaching Assistant (Grader), University of Michigan
POLSCI 389: Campaigns and Elections
Fall 2014

Teaching Assistant (Grader), University of Michigan
POLSCI 389: Congress and the Presidency
Fall 2015, Winter 2016