As the first new instructor for this course in ten years, I updated the curriculum and created new lectures, assignments, and assessments. New topics in this offering include working with climate change and environmental datasets, developing API access capabilities, and working with geospatial data structures such as xarrays.
Course Description: Data Analytics, broadly defined as the process to analyze, gain insight, and make informed decisions from data, is
having major corporate, research, and geopolitical impact. This course takes a practical approach for teaching data analytics to help students leverage this powerful skillset. Students in this course will learn quantitative techniques for analyzing datasets, interpreting results, and communicating them in a manner that advances understanding and supports decision-making. Skills gained include methods for downloading data via API calls, leveraging contemporary Python packages, developing databases, and creating compelling visualizations. Additionally, students will develop skills for critically engaging in data analysis, including skills to assess the validity of a dataset for a given purpose, critique methods used to carry out analysis, and offer constructive feedback to improve upon existing work. Assessments include weekly conceptual quizzes, hands-on exercises in-class, take-home assignments, and a final exam. Overall, this course prepares students to be impactful contributors for data-driven fields across industry, academia, government and beyond.
As co-instructor with Prof. Kwadwo Osseo-Asare, I helped refresh this course to center Pan-African perspectives on research and inquiry. We grounded students in research fundamentals such as literature reviews, framing, and communication, while also exploring non-traditional topics like positionality and African proverbs as methods of inquiry. The goal was to equip students to critically engage with the research enterprise and develop transformative approaches relevant to their contexts.
Course Description: This course develops both the practical skills and critical framework needed for conducting transformative Pan-
African research. Students first build foundational skills for engaging, evaluating, implementing, and communicating research projects. These skills are then contextualized within Pan-African philosophies, with students engaging questions about innovation, positionality, and impact. Overall, this course prepares students to conduct rigorous and socially transformative research.
As co-instructor, I developed and gave lectures and designed a new hands-on lab on a water pumping system I had developed for solar-powered cooling chambers in Kenya and India. By generating and analyzing data from the lab, students were able to select a water pump that could meet flow requirements for an irrigation system in a rural community.
Course Description: Students survey energy technologies including solar wind and hydro power, cooking, indoor heating, irrigation, and agricultural productivity, through an international development context to impart energy literacy and common-sense applications. This course focuses on compact, robust, low-cost systems for meeting the needs of households and small business; and provides an overview of identifying user needs, assessing the suitability of specific technologies, and strategies for implementation in developing countries. Labs reinforce lecture material through hands-on activities including system assembly and testing.
I led and taught this course for approximately 70 students. As the instructor, I developed all the course materials including problem sets, exams, and lecture notes. The course included a final design project of a renewable energy system, and a field visit to an electricity generation plant outside of Accra.
Course Description: This is an integrated course of thermodynamics and fluid dynamics theories and their application to engineering systems, and the study of heat transfer by conduction, convection, and radiation. The course will look at the application of thermodynamics and fluid dynamics principles in systems like engines, refrigeration cycles and pumps. Students will study in detail the basic sciences behind thermal and fluid systems.
I led and taught this course for approximately 90 students. As the instructor, I developed all the course materials including problem sets, exams, and lecture notes. I opened lectures with popular videos highlighting core concepts (such as rocket launches and acrobatic skills) and designed problems to analyze these videos. When the course was disrupted by onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I switched to a Flipped Classroom model where lectures were posted asynchronously online and problem solving workshops and Office Hours were done live on Zoom.
Course Description: This course is an introduction to classical mechanics and fundamental physics theories. The course will focus on motion of objects using basic kinematic and kinetic principles. At the end of the course, students will have a firm understanding and practical experience with the fundamental mechanics theories. Some topics introduced in this course will be expanded in other advanced courses, such as Introduction to Thermal and Fluid Dynamics, Thermodynamics, Heat and Thermal system and Dynamic Systems. Writing quality lab reports will also be emphasized.