Teaching Statement

I view teaching as a collaborative process of discovery, where students and educators learn from one another through dialogue, reflection, and practice. Teaching and supervision are central to my academic practice, and I am deeply committed to fostering curiosity, critical thinking, and intellectual growth. As both an educator and researcher, I am passionate about sharing my enthusiasm for qualitative and multi‑method research, international development, governance, and political economy. My teaching philosophy emphasizes bridging theory and practice, drawing on my extensive experience in the international development sector as a practitioner and social justice advocate. Over more than a decade, I have worked with international, regional, and local organizations, and these experiences inform my classroom approach. I strongly believe in active learning and strive to create an engaging, interactive environment where students connect theoretical concepts with their lived experiences. For me, teaching is not simply about delivering lectures; it is about equipping students with a toolkit of theories, concepts, and empirical examples that empower them to integrate knowledge into their perspectives and shape their worldviews.

My pedagogical approach is further strengthened by formal training credentials, including a University Delivery Qualification (UDQ) certificate and completion of a thesis supervision course at the RISBO Training Centre at Erasmus University Rotterdam. These accreditations have enhanced my ability to design course modules, develop clear learning objectives, and ensure alignment between objectives, activities, and assessments. They have equipped me with practical tools to deliver engaging, student‑centered education and to guide learners through activities that foster deeper understanding and improve their learning process. Moreover, the emphasis on student supervision has enabled me to refine my supervisory approach, particularly by learning how to ask questions that are responsive to students’ needs and provide the support required for their academic and personal growth.

Over the course of my PhD journey at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam, I had the opportunity to develop and refine my teaching practice through a range of engagements. For two consecutive academic years (2024 - 2025), I served as a lecturer for a Qualitative Interviewing Course. In this role, I delivered lectures on interviewing techniques, organized workshops that enabled students to apply learning objectives in practice, supervised their fieldwork assignments, and graded their written work. Over the same period, I also joined the teaching team of a minor course on Global Development Challenges within the Leiden‑Erasmus‑Delft (LED) consortium as a guest lecturer. In this capacity, I designed interactive workshops that incorporated role play and empirical case studies to deepen students’ understanding of social protection interventions and cash transfer programs in sub‑Saharan Africa. Across both teaching experiences, I consistently drew on examples from my own research, enriching classroom discussions and enhancing my credibility as an educator.

Furthermore, during research secondments at the University of the Western Cape (South Africa) and Makerere University (Uganda), I delivered guest lectures for master’s students on topics such as governance and development trajectories, the role of donors in social policy programs, and civil society and development. These engagements provided opportunities to share comparative insights across diverse contexts while encouraging students to critically examine the interplay between theory, policy, and practice. In addition, I have delivered guest lectures on public policy issues at Northwestern University in Qatar and Cairo University in Egypt, as well as numerous training workshops for civil servants, NGO staff, and representatives of political parties during my professional practice.

I am eager to embrace new teaching opportunities where I can draw on both my academic expertise and practical experience to engage students in topics related to international development, public policy, Middle Eastern and African studies, philosophies of science, and research methodologies.