I am an experienced teacher on the executive, undergraduate, and masters levels, in both political science and interdisciplinary settings. On the executive level, I currently design and implement in-person and virtual academic programs, expert roundtables, and webinars on security sector governance and countering transnational organized crime for African security sector officials from military and civilian backgrounds. In the past, I have coordinated and taught the West Africa Course at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, contributed to the design and teaching of the Area Studies 101 Course. At the American Bar Association, I designed and delivered French- and English-language trainings to in-house Country Directors and African civil society partners on monitoring and evaluation, program data usage for decision-making, theory of change, questionnaire design, and social science research methods. I tailor these engagements to the substantive and professional needs of the participants, who have spanned the interagency in their affiliations. Topics for the application of the material have been to work related to countering violent extremism, anti-slavery and legal identity advocacy, anti-corruption efforts, public diplomacy, security governance, and economic and political development issues.
My andragogical approaches are based on techniques of peer learning, experience sharing, and guided exercises to explore the practical applications of theories and concepts that can help solve real-world problems. On the undergraduate and masters level, three objectives guide my interactions with students: (1) imparting a sense of excitement about politics and society that helps students develop analytical tools to make sense of local and global dynamics touching their lives; (2) ensuring that students learn how to apply theoretical approaches from the social sciences and humanities in order to understand particular political and social contexts; and (3) showing students how to construct and evaluate arguments based on empirical evidence and rigorous analysis. My courses are designed to provide students with opportunities to participate in the craft of research. I guide my students in developing specific knowledge of people, processes, and events while also accounting for transnational dynamics that shape cultures, economies, and political systems. We learn comparative and ethnographic methods from the humanities and social sciences as well as historical evidence about life the states and societies being studied.