Global Arc

This course introduces students to the ways that policy, design, and citizen activism shaped affordable housing in the United States from the early 20th century to the present. We explore privately-developed tenements and row houses, government-built housing, publicly-subsidized suburban homes and cooperatives, as well as housing developed through incentives and subsidies. Students will analyze the balance between public and private, free market and subsidy, and preservation and renewal. Close attention will be paid to the role of race in structuring the relationship between policymakers, property owners, renters, and homeowners.

This course examines how Africans have made cities from the Medieval era to the present day. Students will learn about the forces that have structured the buildings found on African cityscapes, the jobs done by urban workers, and the relationship African urbanites had with their environments. Students will examine how people experienced and transformed urban landscapes across Africa and develop the skills needed to critically analyze urban built environments. By doing so, students will develop the tools to interpret how cities are made and remade as well as the ability to explain how cities have structured Africa's past, present and future.

This interdisciplinary course explores the dynamic relationship between urban development and the natural environment between 1450 and 1800. Contrary to the common perception of nature as existing solely beyond urban boundaries, this course reveals how cities have always intertwined with natural elements that required protection, restoration, and even creation. Through engaging discussions and written assignments, students will gain a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between urban growth and environmental stewardship, and how these historical insights can inform contemporary urban and environmental practices.

Africa is urbanizing faster than any region of the world. This course analyzes socio-spatial dynamics that create urban life in Africa and generate inequalities arising from urbanization. Students will investigate the links between urbanization, infrastructure systems and informality, and how these shape and connect to food systems and impact the food security of urban residents. Upon completing the course, students will be able to recognize and challenge reductionist narratives concerning contemporary urbanism and explore possibilities for intervention, re-design and change.

This class uses street traffic to ground a history of Western ideas about the sources of order in a complex world. We'll use primary sources to explore urban street life from ancient times to the present: how movement was experienced and organized, how jams and crashes were explained, and how our modern transport system emerged. Meanwhile, we'll use works of theory to connect traffic to ideas about other kinds of circulation: of blood, money, information, et al. By the end of class, students will be able to situate modern traffic, with its automated vehicles, policing, and routinized death, within a larger story about how we share space.

This seminar course uses interdisciplinary infrastructure studies to analyze various types of physical, human, and social infrastructures. Beginning with the theoretical roots of infrastructure studies, students will examine how infrastructure projects have served as a means of exerting state power over territories, people, and the environment. Through ethnographies of infrastructures across the global South, we will analyze the materiality of physical infrastructures (pipes, roads, bridges), as well as knowledge infrastructures of paperwork, bureaucracy, standards, regulations, and law

An introduction to numerical and Monte Carlo methods useful for engineering and scientific applications. Topics covered include solution of non-linear equations, interpolation and extrapolation, integration of functions, solution of ordinary and partial differential equations, random number generation, and stochastic sampling (Monte Carlo) methods. The emphasis is on the practical use of these methods. Assignments are expected to be completed using MATLAB or a comparable environment.

This sophomore/junior-level elective seminar will examine the complexities of the energy transition. Through case studies and interviews with industry leaders, students will appreciate the scale and magnitude of the challenge and the factors that limit the pace of the transition. The seminar will specifically focus on the decarbonization challenges of difficult-to-abate sectors, like shipping, and in teams of two or three, students will work together to come up with hypothetical policy interventions to accelerate the transition.

Light-driven catalysis offers a promising pathway towards more sustainable chemical transformations due to milder process conditions and the potential to capitalize on sunlight as a scalable, carbon-free energy source. This course explores applications of such photocatalytic systems in important reactions and sectors - including CO2 upgrading, pharmaceuticals, and microplastic mitigation - covering fundamental concepts related to redox chemistry and thermodynamics, optoelectronic properties of photocatalytic materials, and photocatalyst/photoreactor design.

From the ubiquitous water bottle to food packaging to Barbie, we live in a plastic world. While plastics provide benefits from safe food delivery to sterile healthcare products, only a small percentage is recycled. This course addresses the historical development of plastics and their impacts. We'll discuss the science of plastics and their lifecycle from sourcing through manufacturing, use, and end-of-life. Topics will include microplastics, plastics in the ocean, and the impacts of additives (e.g. BPA). Finally, we'll examine solutions including recycling and bio-based plastics from scientific, behavioral, and economic perspectives.