Academic Research
Below are some sample projects and categories or research I employed in academia.
In 2019 I joined Fordham's International Political Economy and Development graduate students for a class entitled "Foreign Aid and Development." I teamed up with them to co-author the chapter on water access as a metric of poverty. Click the image to see the full report.
I empathized with students at the end of the semester. Based on surveys and interviews, I knew they were tired and had little mental space remaining. I was also noticing that performance often slipped on final exams, that many seemed to remember very little from their previous classes, and that many treated my course material (which was supposed to be relevant to living life) as mere facts to memorize. I read extensively on pedagogy about student psychology and the positive effects of creativity, thought back to some of my most formative experiences, interviewed students, and then designed a novel (and now very well received) final exam activity. This also appears in my teaching portfolio.
The capstone for my Advanced Certificate in Healthcare Ethics probed whether the use of fMRI technology is acceptable in the criminal justice system as an alternative to traditional interrogative methods and polygraphs. Some studies indicate that fMRI results may be read to determine a person's future behavior, and some proposals suggest using it to determine sentencing and probation details. I consulted with neuroscience faculty and read studies in neuroscience to inform my ethical stance.
On a related note, click the bridge icon to understand how I think about philosophy and it's value outside of the university walls.
Methods & Sources
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Topical: I am a voracious reader and always prepared for teaching and writing by doing extensive reading and listening to field experts. Fields I spent most time in included history, business practices and standards, medicine and healthcare administration, biology, psychology, sociology, and law. I also read these sources recreationally to keep up with current events to keep my ideas fresh and grounded.
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Behavioral: I took advantage of surveys, laddering interviews, and focus groups to understand students' experience of my courses, then tried to implement those findings about experiences and values into my pedagogy.
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Archival: Sometimes, especially when writing about the views of an author in the history of philosophy, I had to establish the setting in which the primary author was writing. What were his or her influences? What were social trends that he or she likely encountered? To what texts, music, and/or artworks was the author exposed? What was the political, economic, and educational status common to the place of origin? To answer these and questions like them, I turned to historical archives and niche history texts. (One of my favorite projects involved deciphering the [linked] Medieval Latin script writing of the Glossa Ordinaria as I was learning about theories of mental illumination and how they manifested themselves in medieval and renaissance artworks.)
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Demographic: Especially when writing on social, political, and business ethics issues, it was necessary to know about a population--access to clean water, average level of education, kind of engagement with certain sources (e.g., news, social media, or Internet), etc. For this, I sought special databases and spreadsheets from organizations like the Census Bureau, United Nations, and World Bank.