I am an Associate Professor of Teaching in the Department of Political Science. One stream of my research explores why many citizens are so reluctant to change their political opinions when confronted with compelling new information (e.g. climate change, vaccines, etc). Another stream explores the positive and negatives of web enabled technology in the classroom (student interaction: good!, distraction: bad!). My teaching focuses on public opinion, elections, and democratic representation in Canada and the United States as well as introductory statistics for social sciences. This year I am starting a new course on the politics of climate change in which students will gain an understanding of how fundamental political concepts like collective action problems and in group out group biases relate to the challenges of climate change mitigation and adaptation.Some non work stuff: I grew up in Toronto and earned an MA here at UBC before doing my doctorate at Princeton. I did an exchange in my 3rd year of my undergraduate degree and I highly recommend it. I have lived in Vancouver for just over a decade and now live with my spouse, an eight year old kid, and a 12 year old dog. We are thinking about getting a new dog in the coming months and my dream is to have a dog who would love to run and catch frisbees. When presented with this opportunity, my last two dogs have looked at me like I am crazy.I am really looking forward to Jump Start. For me, it is an opportunity to remind myself that the university experience is really novel for so many students and that practices and knowledge I take for granted are completely new for many of you. I hope we can identify and talk about some of these new things as well as talk about the sort of strategies students can use to make the most of their first weeks, first term, first year, and first degree.