Teaching

I have a passion for journalism and the important role it serves in society. Before entering academia, I worked in South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States as a journalist in various positions. As a result of that experience, I have had the opportunity to teach conceptual as well as professional journalism skill classes such as Multimedia Reporting. I have taught and developed classroom and online courses on Reporting on Diversity; Strategic Global Communication; the Future of Global Journalism; Media, Globalization and Terrorism; as well as graduate classes on Comparative Communication Methodology; and Journalism and Populism. I have spent five summers at Santa Clara University (CA) as a visiting researcher, and I have guest-lectured on a variety of topics at Stanford University, University of Missouri, University of Texas at Austin, Ohio University, University of Zurich, and the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). In addition, I have developed, in collaboration with the Hispanic Studies department, an undergraduate minor in Hispanic Journalism at the University of Houston in 2020. Below are classes I love teaching.

  • Immigration, Hispanics, and Data (Spring 2021)

    COMM 4386: The Covid-19 global pandemic has had and still has an unprecedent impact on immigrants and refugees in the United States and globally. This course will introduce you to the historical context and current debates over immigration reform, focusing on the political discourse and rhetoric in media. You will examine the media’s role in helping shape perceptions about immigration policies and immigrants, as well as perceptions about the countries people are migrating from. The course aims to provide a better understanding of how to report fairly and accurately on immigrant communities in Houston, as well as the causes of and potential solutions to inequities communities face. Throughout the semester students will report on various local immigrant communities and track and evaluate mass media coverage of a particular immigrant community or immigration policy.

  • Global Journalism: Reporting on Diversity (Spring 2020)

    COMM 4397: In this class, students will be introduced to the concept and storytelling techniques of global journalism. One important aspect of global journalism entails its relevance for telling local stories with global angles. The class therefore includes a practical element of learning about data sources in the Houston area to tell global stories from a local perspective. The core skills of working with numbers and telling stories in the public interest are nowadays fundamental to all newsroom work. This class is therefore a collaborative effort with Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research making use of data from the Houston Community Data Connections dashboard and the Kinder Houston Area Survey . Students will familiarize themselves with data and visualization techniques. The main learning outcome includes students knowing about the importance and benefit of data and how to use of them in journalistic storytelling on global stories and issues.