Luke Heslip is a Politics Ph.D. student at the University of California Santa Cruz interested in American political development, parties, and elections. He earned a B.A. and M.A. in Political Science at San Francisco State University, where he was the instructor of record for an American politics course for two years. Heslip teaches middle school social studies and speech and debate classes at SummrGATE San Francisco. Before academia, he worked in electoral politics and educational and environmental non-profits. Heslip wants to develop social, discussion, and simulation-centric pedagogy.