Teaching
Course Links
Research Design for Environmental Social Science
Description This is a graduate-level course on research design for environmental social science. This course will introduce students to research design considerations and how they fit into the scientific method. The course is organized around hands-on learning, with the goal that by the end of the course, students will have produced a publication-level and implementable research design.
Politics of Climate Governance
Description This is an undergraduate-level course on the politics of climate change governance. Here, we will explore how climate mitigation and adaptation decisions are made and their consequences for different segments of society. In approaching these topics, we will emphasize taking a systems approach to understanding the policy process as a component of a complex socioecological system.
In this course, we will practice being informed consumers of social scientific research, with considerable course efforts put toward individual and team-based critiques and applications of research findings and methodology.
Environmental Social Science (Human Dimensions)
Description This is a undergraduate-level course on human-environment interactions with a focus on environmental governance and policy-making. In this course, we will look at how humans shape and are in turn shaped by the environment. In approaching this topic, we will emphasize taking a systems approach to understanding human-environment interactions as complex socioecological systems. The course is organized around hands-on learning, with considerable time and effort put toward individual and team-based production of policy and community engagement projects.
Computational Social Science for Climate Governance
Description This is a collaborative course between social science students at the University of Helsinki and computer science students at Aalto University. Students will work in mixed teams to apply computational methods to study the social and political aspects of climate governance.
- Climate Governance Component This is a course on climate governance, which we take to broadly include the drivers and consequences of policies associated with the distributional outcomes stemming from climate change. Climate change is one of the most dire problems facing contemporary society. A large part of these challenges are social and political in nature, which we can address using sound social scientific research. In this course, students will begin to acquire the skills needed to do this kind of work. First, students will be introduced to concepts in policy studies and topics in contemporary climate governance. Second, with applications to climate governance, students will take a hands-on approach to learning how to do research using quantitative or computational social science approaches. This will be done through research teams comprising budding domain experts (i.e. students themselves) and technical specialists who will serve as data scientists. The technical specialists will be data science and other computational science students from Aalto University enrolled in a companion course on applied data science.
- Applied Data Science Component This is an applied data science course where students will learn how to collaborate with domain experts. With the complexity of today’s policy issues as well as the increasing availability of rich but messy data, there is demand for researchers who are skilled in data science and quantitative approaches to studying complex systems. Cross-domain communication is key to successful collaboration, but it is a difficult and often missed part of data science training. In this course, students will take a hands-on approach to learning these skills by working as data scientists on policy research teams. We will specifically be working with social science and policy researchers studying climate governance, but the skills learned should be broadly applicable to research scenarios in the public, academic, and private sectors. The domain experts will be social science students from the University of Helsinki enrolled in a companion course on climate governance.
- Course website
Workshops and Other Resources
Introduction to Exponential Random Graph Models
This is a workshop on ERGMs held as part of the 2021 Political Networks Conference. Access the workshop website and R tutorial materials here.
Climate Justice in the U.S. Context from a Political Perspective
Description for a planned course in climate justice in the U.S. context.
Independent Research on Political Assassinations (Undergraduate)
Research seminar for advanced undergraduate students at Pennsylvania State University.
Advanced Research Design (Undergraduate)
Online course designed for Pennsylvania State University.