B.A. Political Science, UCLA
J.D. with Critical Race Studies Specialization, UCLA School of Law
Ph.D. Sociology, UC Santa Barbara

• BIS 279 Introduction to Law & Society
• BISLEP 301 Law, Economics, and Public Policy
• BIS 353 Human Rights in Theory and Practice
• BIS 318 Global Scholars: Foundation and Preparation
• BIS 418 Global Scholars: Global Citizenship in Context

I approach teaching with a conviction that the space of the classroom is not so cleanly separated from the broader world; we are community members when we are on campus just as we are scholars when we move about our lives off-campus. As such, I encourage students to connect the information and ideas we engage in class with the thoughts and experiences they have accumulated beyond the classroom. Furthermore, my students learn to treat marginalized voices, personal narratives, and hidden histories as valuable sources of knowledge.

At its core, my teaching harnesses educational tools to empower students. This involves developing students’ capacity to take responsibility for their own learning, to participate in the production of knowledge, and to engage ideas in both critical and socially responsible ways. Rooted in my conviction that learning is a fundamentally social act, I cultivate opportunities for collaboration as a supportive and dynamic way to develop students’ critical thinking skills. I ask that students come to class with a genuine intellectual curiosity and a generous respect for those around them. It is my hope that the scholarly tools we hone together remain with students long after they leave my class.

My research agenda examines the interactions between state power and people’s movements, both physical and social. I am particularly interested in highlighting the resilience and genius of ordinary people who navigate terrains of intensifying state control and forge new models for living their lives in peace. These legacies are empowering because they prove that people have long figured out ways of working together to survive catastrophes and will continue to do so.

My first solo-authored monograph, /Vehicles of Decolonization: Public Transit in the Palestinian West Bank/ (Temple University Press, 2021), examines Palestinian public transportation in the West Bank as a productive site of social struggle, where popular demands for freedom are expressed through implied and overt challenges to settler colonialism. I previously published a study about the way college students of Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA, sometimes called “Middle Eastern and North African”) descent organized to change the way they are officially racially categorized–from white to SWANA–in order to better reflect their lived experiences. I also co-edited a collection of testimonies from U.S.-based academics about their experiences being targeted by silencing campaigns for their support of Palestinian rights.