Teaching

Government 2001: Advanced Quantitative Research Methodology (Professor Gary King)

Semester: 
Spring
Offered: 
2010

Teaching Fellow.  Mean student evaluation score of 4.2 out of 5. The second half of the quantitative methods sequence for graduate students in the Harvard Department of Government, the course introduces advanced topics in political methodology.  Topics covered included maximum likelihood estimation, Monte Carlo simulation, missing data techniques, basic text analysis, causal inference, and research design. All materials were taught using the R statistical languague.

You can find the 2010 syllabus here and my evaluations here.

Related course materials:

Government 2000: Introduction to Quantitative Methods (Professor Adam Glynn)

Semester: 
Fall
Offered: 
2009

Teaching Fellow. Mean student evaluation score of 4.1 out of 5. This course is the required first half of the quantitative methods sequence for incoming graduate students in the Harvard Department of Government. A general introduction to the use of statistics in political science research, the course covered basic data analysis, introductory probability, sampling distributions, univariate and multivariate linear regression, and basic causal inference.  All materials were taught using the R statistical language. 

You can find the 2009 syllabus here and my evaluations here.

Related course materials:

  • Section 1 R code and data: basic R functions
  • Section 3 R code and data: confidence intervals, hypothesis testing
  • Section 5 R code: linear regression, sampling
  • Section 7 R code: interaction terms
  • Section 9 R code: F-test
  • Section 11 review session notes

Government 2453: Practical & Theoretical Regulation of Voting (Professors Jim Greiner & Kevin Quinn)

Semester: 
Fall
Offered: 
2008

Teaching Fellow (Unevaluated). Cross-registered with the Harvard Law School. This class was an interdisciplinary look at voting, specifically focusing on points of contact between the legal scholarship on voting rights and election law and the political science literature on redistricting, voting behavior, and elections. Emphasis placed on how observed data can be, and should be, used as evidence.

Government 1510: American Constitutional Law (Professor Richard Fallon, Harvard Law School)

Semester: 
Fall
Offered: 
2008

Head Teaching Fellow. Mean student evaluation score of 4.8 out of 5. This class was an introduction to American constitutional law for undergraduates, with a principal focus on decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court.  Topics covered included freedom of speech and religion, guarantees of due process and equal protection, and the powers of Congress and the courts. I was awarded the Harvard Certificate for Distinction in Teaching. 

You can find the 2008 syllabus here and my evaluations here.

Related legal hypotheticals discussed in section (so may include some unattributed material!):

Government 2069: Religion and the First Amendment (Professor Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago Law School)

Semester: 
Fall
Offered: 
2007

Teaching Fellow (Unevaluated). Cross registered with the Harvard Law School, this course covered the major Constitutional issues involving freedom of religion.  Topics covered included the relationship between the Establishment clause and the Free Exercise clause as well as underlying concepts, such as freedom, equality, non-hierarchy, separation, and neutrality.