I believe that transformative learning often occurs when individual study is combined with peer-based activities. For this reason, my pedagogy is designed around participatory strategies that encourage social learning, such as roundtable discussions, games, online modules, and interactive research presentations that facilitate collaborative synthesis of course materials.
Student Poster sessions at the end of the semester
Costa Rican undergraduates and Ministry of Health officials who I co-trained in applied anthropological methods to conduct the largest epidemiological survey ever to be conducted in Costa Rica and the first of its kind in the tropics
I helped develop and co-instruct the public outreach program, “Music and Spanish in the Andes Language Learning Academy” (MÁS ALLÁ), which focused on teaching language, culture, and music to high school students in central Ohio. This experiential learning opportunity served as most students’ first university encounter. Here is a fun shot taken after we ‘flipped roles’ and had our high school students teaching visiting Fulbright teachers how to play the zampoñas and sing the canto “La Paloma.”
Course Flyer for Global Crisis course I re-designed at Ohio State and taught as instructor
At Ohio State University, I re-designed and sole-taught capstone courses that focus on globalization and its cultural, economic, environmental, and health effects on communities in the Global South. One course was entitled “Crisis! Anthropological Perspectives of Global Issues” (taught 6 semesters) and the other “Cultural Conflicts in Developing Nations” (taught 2 semesters). The last course I taught at Ohio State covered issues related to colonialism (both historical and modern e.g. neoliberalism), linkages between political economy and health, and the effects of global environmental crises on local communities.
Mentorship is also intrinsic to my pedagogy. Through my ongoing research programs in Latin America, I have mentored undergraduate and Master’s students from universities in the United States, Peru, and Costa Rica on topics relating to wastewater pollution, sustainable development, and environmental crises and policy.
Commemorating the last day of fieldwork with undergraduate sociology and anthropology student interns from Universidad de Costa Rica who worked on the MERA Investigation.
