I teach both undergraduate and graduate classes at Vanderbilt. Central to my teaching is my steadfast belief that it is essential that more people understand how data is used (and misused) to make theoretical claims about why something is happening and what it means. I strive to empower my students to be better consumers and producers of data-driven analyses and theoretical claims about the world -- and especially in terms of elections, public opinion, and the actions of political elites.
A selection of classes and content follows.
PSCI 1500: US Elections (Fall 2020)
This was an online class I co-taught to nearly 700 undergraduates at Vanderbilt. I created lectures on pre-election polling, predicting elections, election administration, and the Electoral College. Rather than let them gather dust, I uploaded them to YouTube in case others find them useful or helpful. They are available here.
PSCI 2300: Introduction to Data Science and Politics (Spring 2021)
This is an introductory class to data, data science, statistical thinking, and R. Focusing on applications in political science and the social sciences, we use base R to teach fundamentals of description, visualization, inference, interpretation, and presentation. Central to the class is the question: how can data be used and misused to make descriptive and causal claims about the world.