Teaching
I have a broad set of teaching interests in Race, Ethnicity and Politics and American Politics. I am especially interested in teaching courses that relate to my substantive and methodological interests in urban politics, representation, institutions, inequality, experimental design, elite interviews, and applied research in the classroom setting.
Experiments in Race, Ethnicity and Politics - Spring 2022
Professor: Efrén Pérez
This research practicum introduces students to seminal experimental works in race, ethnicity and politics while providing advanced methodological training on experiments. Across 10 weeks, students are immersed in the research process from beginning to end by developing a research hypothesis and experimental design through a student team proposal. One team's proposal is selected for data collection. Students then analyze the data and write a final paper in the format of a submission to the Journal of Experimental Political Science.
As a teaching assistant for this methods-intensive course, I a) steered the students' efforts in developing a testable experimental hypothesis, b) reinforced statistical knowledge of estimation, c) introduced them to R studio as a statistical language, d) taught them applied data analysis and visualization for experiments in social science; and e) supported their writing for their final paper using RMarkdown. Additionally, I constructed the chosen experimental instrument in Qualtrics and oversaw the data collection process with a polling firm.
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U.S. Latino Politics - Winter 2021
Professor: Mathew Barreto
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This course examines the history and contemporary role of Latina/os in the U.S. political system. Students are first exposed to brief historical analyses of Latina/o immigration and migration, followed by collective struggles during the civil rights movement, which produced increases in registration and voting in the 1980s and 1990s, along with anti-immigrant attitudes by elites and the masses. Students explore the political relationships between Latinos and non-Latinos as they relate to political institutions, political parties, voting coalitions, representation, and public policy – including a focus on Latinos' role in recent presidential elections from 2008 to 2020.
As a teaching assistant for this upper division course, I a) facilitated discussion on assigned literature, b) strengthened student’s understanding of the research process including the development of a research question and literature review; and c) taught students to analyze data on Latina/o public opinion, voting behavior and political attitudes using the Latino National Survey (LNS) or the American National Election Study (ANES) 2016 and 2020 datasets on a broad range of topics using STATA and R statistical language.
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Excerpts from Teaching Evaluations
Student in Experiments
The discussion sections for this course were extremely helpful and helped us better understand how to create our own experimental designs. I enjoyed having specific sections dedicated to learning R studio and data analysis. Overall, the discussion section was helpful and well structured and most importantly, Ana always encouraged us to be curious and to not be afraid of the research process!
Student in Latino Politics
Ana was such an amazing TA! She was flexible and accommodating, which was amazing support while we transitioned from virtual to in person learning. Ana was incredibly approachable and has SO MUCH knowledge of Latino politics, I always enjoyed hearing her perspective on the content we were learning.
Student in Experiments
Overall a great person with a lot of passion and understanding for students. She kept everyone on track and somehow she taught us how to use R incredibly well which I am thankful for! Ana is a stand-up type of person and I really cannot explain how helpful she is!