Teaching
I teach quantitative and spatial analysis in planning — statistics, GIS, urban data science, and critical cartography — at both the undergraduate and graduate level. My approach pairs methods with the planning questions that motivate them, and increasingly brings emerging tools (GeoAI, remote sensing, machine learning, LLMs) into the classroom. Syllabi are linked below.
Courses taught as instructor
CRP 1200: Introduction to Statistics for Urban Studies
Spring 2025 · Instructor · Undergraduate (core method) · 42 students · Lecture
Introduces descriptive and inferential statistics for understanding places and human well-being. The course emphasizes using statistics to interpret the world, evaluate policy, and support forecasting, while helping students connect theory to empirical analysis. Students work in Excel, R, and Stata as complementary tools, with major publicly available datasets commonly used in urban studies.
CRP/DESGN 4680/5680: Introduction to Urban Data Science
Spring 2025 · Instructor · Undergraduate / graduate (Master's core method) · 31 students · Lecture and lab
Introduces data analysis, coding, statistics, visualization, and generative AI for urban and spatial research. Using open-source data and Python, students learn to formulate research questions, prepare data, apply analytical methods, and present findings. The course also introduces emerging AI and LLMs for the analysis of cities, society, and the environment.
CRP 4080: Introduction to GIS for Urban Studies
Fall 2024 · Instructor · Undergraduate (core method) · 30 students · Lecture and lab
Covers foundational GIS concepts and skills, including mapping, projection, geoprocessing, data acquisition, and basic network and raster analysis. For introductory students, the course emphasizes spatial reasoning and critical thinking, with attention to social and environmental justice issues.
CRP 2100: Neighborhood Change in the City: Quantitative Methods
Fall 2024 · Co-instructor, with Prof. Wenfei Xu · Undergraduate (core method II) · 42 students · Lecture and lab
Introduces undergraduate students to empirical quantitative research in urban studies. The course links debates on housing, neighborhood change, and urban inequality to applied quantitative methods, and covers basic econometric concepts such as sampling, treatment and control groups, and introductory ideas from quasi-experimental approaches, including difference-in-differences, panel fixed effects, and spatial regression.
CRP 3280/4280: Mapping and Counter-mapping
Fall 2024 · Co-instructor, with Prof. Wenfei Xu · Graduate · 12 students · Lecture and lab
Combines lecture and discussion with lab sessions. Lectures take up the debates and practices of critical cartography and digital geography, with an emphasis on the ethos of countermapping to amplify underrepresented perspectives. In the labs, students critically analyze existing maps and develop their own narrative maps and countermaps using QGIS, Mapbox, JavaScript, and HTML.
CRP 3850/5850: Urban Spatial Data Analytics
Summer 2024 · Instructor · Undergraduate · 6 students · Lecture and lab
A summer-school course introducing basic data analytical skills, both spatial and aspatial. Combining lectures and labs, students gain the theory and reasoning of spatial statistics alongside hands-on experience using programming to carry out analytical tasks — from proposing ideas and preparing and cleaning data through analysis, poster-making, and presentation.
Courses assisted as teaching assistant
- CRP 1200: Introduction to Statistics for Urban Studies
- CRP 4080: Introduction to GIS for Urban Studies
- CRP/DESGN 4680/5680: Introduction to Urban Data Science
- CRP 5080: Introduction to GIS for Urban Studies
- CRP 6290: Advanced Topics in GIS
All courses were taught in the Department of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University.