More than twenty years into teaching politics, I’m still making up countries for students to run. There are easier ways to prepare a class. I like seeing what people bring to a problem: a stubborn objection, an unexpected connection, a question that makes the rest of us stop and think.
I came to Seattle in 2007 for graduate school at the University of Washington, where I earned my PhD in political science. I now teach at Green River College and UW. My research follows how governments categorize people and places, how those categories shape their lives, and how arrangements people have made come to seem inevitable. I’m interested in how control becomes ordinary, whose history gets pushed out of view, and how people challenge the terms they’re given. Those questions run through my work on state power, political demography, immigration, and Israel–Palestine.
Teaching gives me another puzzle: how do you help someone enter a complicated idea before they know its vocabulary? I build classroom simulations where students make decisions about cooperation, protest, or belonging, then use what happened to work through the concepts. I also develop online simulations and AI study partners that ask students to explain, use evidence, and revise. I want them to reach the reading with something they’re already trying to understand.
Mentoring is a part of this work I care about deeply. I like helping a student turn an interest into a research question, work through an uncertain next step, or see a project they could make their own. That takes listening, making expectations clear, and giving useful feedback while there is still time to do something with it. The relationship matters as much as the advice.
Earlier, I co-founded and edited The Public Sphere at Tel Aviv University. A journal, a class, and a simulation take different kinds of work, but I keep coming back to the pleasure of getting people involved in an idea—and seeing where they take it.
I want students to feel they have something to contribute while they’re still figuring things out. You can disagree with me; I’ll take your argument seriously, and I’ll ask you to take other people’s seriously too. Writing first, asking anonymously, or working through a problem together can give more people a way into the conversation.