Simon Jackman

Simon Jackman

Honorary Professor

University of Sydney

Biography

For three decades I’ve been a researcher, teacher, mentor, leader and communicator, in political science and data science, in the United States and Australia.

Born and raised in Australia, I moved to the US for doctoral studies at the University of Rochester and Princeton University, before two decades of academic appointments at the University of Chicago and Stanford University. I returned to Australia in 2015. I was the CEO and Professor of Political Science at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney for six years (2016-2022) where I am now an Honorary Professor. I am an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and the Society for Political Methodology.

I am an independent data scientist and strategist, with clients in politics, advocacy, media, academia and business.

My clients value my expertise in survey research, experimental design and analysis, statistical modelling, machine learning, natural language processing and data visualization. Solutions I provide include:

  • Informing strategy: identifying targets of opportunity and vulnerabilities in political and commercial settings, optimal messaging and framing.

  • Close to real-time tracking of voter/consumer/customer sentiment, combining information from disparate sources for best-in-class projections across small geographic areas; offering tactical, decision-support for election, advocacy or marketing campaigns.

  • Helping clients bring data into their decision-making; advising on hiring, IT, and data collection, curation and dissemination across the enterprise.

  • Bespoke modeling, simulation and forecasting.

  • Expert witness reporting and testimony.

  • Training and mentoring in data science, machine learning, and Bayesian statistics.

Current projects:

  • small-area estimation: inferring public opinion at the level of parliamentary seats/districts, postcodes, local government areas etc, from macro-level data.

  • machine-learning methods for classifying and modelling large corpora of text: identifying persuasive and persistent campaign messages and narratives, misinformation and disinformation, counter-narratives.

Download my CV .

Interests
  • Data science, computational social science
  • Machine learning, NLP
  • Elections and public opinion
Education
  • PhD in Political Science, 1995

    University of Rochester

  • BA Hons (1st class) in Government, 1988

    University of Queensland

Recent & Upcoming Talks

The 2022 Australian Federal Election: Results from the Australian Election Study
No slides yet. Contact me if you would like to attend in person, as this event is being held in a “after security” area of Parliament House.

Academic Roles

 
 
 
 
 
United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney
CEO and Professor
Apr 2016 – Mar 2022 Sydney, Australia
Leadership of Australia’s premier research institution focussed on the United States and Australia’s relationship with the United States.
 
 
 
 
 
Stanford University
Professor of Political Science and (by courtesy) Statistics
Jul 1996 – Apr 2016 Stanford, California, USA
Teacher, researcher.
 
 
 
 
 
University of Chicago
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Jul 1994 – May 1996 Chicago, Illinois, USA
Teacher, researcher.

Honors & Awards

 
 
 
 
 
Fellow
Sep 2018 Canberra, Australia
 
 
 
 
 
Fellow
Apr 2013 Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Gregory M. Luebbert Prize for Best Article
Comparative Politics Section, American Political Science Association
Jan 2008
Awarded for “Democracy as a Latent Variable” (with Shawn Treier), American Journal of Political Science.
 
 
 
 
 
Awarded for “The Limits of Deliberative Discussion: A Model of Everyday Political Arguments” (with Paul M. Sniderman), Journal of Politics

Leadership Roles

 
 
 
 
 
Australian Election Survey
Principal Investigator
Jul 2021 – Present Canberra & Sydney, Australia
One of four PIs leading the design, implementation and curation of the leading study of political attitudes and behaviour in Australia.
 
 
 
 
 
United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney
CEO and Professor
Apr 2016 – Mar 2022 Sydney, Australia
Leadership of Australia’s premier research institution on the United States and of Australia’s relationship with the United States. Annual budget of $7-10M, responsible to a Board of Directors co-appointed by the University of Sydney and the American Australian Association.
 
 
 
 
 
American National Election Studies
Principal Investigator
Jul 2009 – Mar 2016 Stanford, California; Ann Arbor, Michigan
One of four PIs leading the design, implementation and curation of the world’s longest running and most authoritative study of mass political attitudes and behavior. Funded by the National Science Foundation at approx USD $9M per 4 yr election cycle.
 
 
 
 
 
Society for Political Methodology
President
Sep 2003 – Aug 2005 Stanford, California
 
 
 
 
 
American Political Science Association
Council Member
Sep 2017 – Sep 2020 Washington DC
 
 
 
 
 
American Political Science Association
Annual Meeting Program Co-Chair
Jan 2014 – Sep 2014 Washington DC
 
 
 
 
 
_Annual Review of Political Science_
Co-Editor
Jan 2008 – Sep 2013 Palo Alto, California
 
 
 
 
 
American Political Science Association
Task Force on Democracy Audits and Governmental Indicators
Sep 2010 – Sep 2011 Washington DC
 
 
 
 
 
UseR! Conference
Program Committee
UseR! Conference
Jun 2006 – Jun 2006 Vienna, Austria

Research Notes and Reports

Consulting clients

 
 
 
 
 
Climate 200
2022 – 2023 Sydney, Australia.
Analysis of polling data, election returns, demographic data; designing and creating donor and contact database. Part of a team that helped elect six “teal” independent candidates to the Australian House of Representatives in Australia’s May 2022 House of Representatives elections.
 
 
 
 
 
Campaign Legal Center
2016 – 2017 Washington DC, USA.
Expert witness in landmark partisan gerrymandering litigation in the United States Gill v Whitford (Wisconsin state legislative redistricting) and Common Cause v Rucho (North Carolina Congressional redistricting). Helped produce the first affirmative trial verdicts for plaintiffs alleging partisan gerrymandering; cases subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
 
 
 
 
 
Facebook
Facebook
2014 – 2014 Menlo Park, California
Design and analysis of employee experience surveys.
 
 
 
 
 
Huffington Post
2012 – 2013 Washington DC, USA.
Poll analysis and averaging, predictive modelling ahead of 2012 US presidential election. Successfully predicted winner of presidential election in all 50 states.

Publications

Quickly discover relevant content by filtering publications.
(2022). Improving the Measurement of ``Big Five'' Personality Traits in a Brief Survey Instrument. European Journal of Psychological Assessment.

Cite DOI

(2021). Politically Invisible in America. PS: Political Science & Politics.

Cite DOI

(2021). Optimal Response Formats for Online Surveys: Branch, Grid, or Single Item?. Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology.

Cite DOI

(2020). National Polling and Other Disasters. Morrison’s Miracle: The 2019 Australian Federal Election.

Cite DOI

(2019). Economic and Cultural Drivers of Immigrant Support Worldwide. British Journal of Political Science.

Cite DOI

(2019). Why Does the American National Election Study Overestimate Voter Turnout?. Political Analysis.

Cite DOI

(2018). An Audit of Political Behavior Research. SAGE Open.

Cite DOI

(2018). The Campaign That Wasn't: Tracking Public Opinion over the 44th Parliament and the 2016 Election Campaign. Double Disillusion: The 2016 Australian Federal Election.

Cite DOI

(2016). Polarization in Less than Thirty Seconds: Continuous Monitoring of Voter Response to Campaign Advertising. Political Communication in Real Time: Theoretical and Applied Research Approaches.

Cite

(2015). All That Glitters: Betting Markets and the 2013 Australian Federal Election. Abbott’s Gambit : The 2013 Australian Federal Election.

Cite DOI

(2014). A Generational Model of Political Learning. Electoral Studies.

Cite DOI

(2013). Do Attitudes about Immigration Predict Willingness to Admit Individual Immigrants?: A Cross-National Test of the Person-Positivity Bias. Public Opinion Quarterly.

Cite DOI

(2011). Cosmopolitanism. Facing the Challenge of Democracy.

Cite

(2010). Primary Politics: Race, Gender, and Age in the 2008 Democratic Primary. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties.

Cite DOI

(2010). Bayesian Analysis. Encyclopedia of Political Science..

Cite DOI

(2009). To Simulate or NOMINATE?. Legislative Studies Quarterly.

Cite DOI

(2008). Measurement. The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology.

Cite DOI

(2008). Measuring District-Level Partisanship with Implications for the Analysis of U.S. Elections. The Journal of Politics.

Cite DOI

(2008). Regression Models for Count Data in R. Journal of Statistical Software.

Cite DOI

(2008). Democracy as a Latent Variable. American Journal of Political Science.

Cite DOI

(2006). The Limits of Deliberative Discussion: A Model of Everyday Political Arguments. The Journal of Politics.

Cite DOI

(2005). Pooling the Polls over an Election Campaign. Australian Journal of Political Science.

Cite DOI

(2005). Incumbency Advantage. Mortgage Nation: The 2004 Australian Election..

Cite

(2004). BAYESIAN ANALYSIS FOR POLITICAL RESEARCH. Annual Review of Political Science.

Cite DOI

(2004). ``The Most Liberal Senator''? Analyzing and Interpreting Congressional Roll Calls. PS: Political Science & Politics.

Cite DOI

(2004). The Statistical Analysis of Roll Call Data. American Political Science Review.

Cite DOI

(2003). Voter Decision Making in Election 2000: Campaign Effects, Partisan Activation, and the Clinton Legacy. American Journal of Political Science.

Cite DOI

(2003). Bayes Factor. SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods.

Cite DOI

(2003). Bayes' Theorem, Bayes' Rule. SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods.

Cite DOI

(2003). Generalized Additive Models. SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods.

Cite DOI

(2003). Generalized Least Squares. SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods.

Cite DOI

(2003). Political Parties and Electoral Behaviour. The Cambridge Handbook of the Social Sciences in Australia.

Cite

(2002). Democratic Discussion: The Role of Reasons and Political Sophistication in Political Argument. La Démocratie à l’ṕreuve : Une Nouvelle Approche de l’opinion Des Français.

Cite

(2002). Pluralistic Intolerance, Political Culture and Democratic Theory. La Démocratie à l’ṕreuve : Une Nouvelle Approche de l’opinion Des Français.

Cite

(2001). Voting: Compulsory. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences.

Cite DOI

(1998). Beyond Linearity by Default: Generalized Additive Models. American Journal of Political Science.

Cite DOI

(1997). Liberalism, Public Opinion, and Their Critics: Some Lessons for Defending Science. The Flight from Science and Reason.

Cite

(1995). Some More of All That: A Reply to Charnock. Australian Journal of Political Science.

Cite DOI

(1994). Forecasting Australian Elections: 1993, and All That. Australian Journal of Political Science.

Cite DOI

(1994). Bayesian Inference for Comparative Research. American Political Science Review.

Cite DOI

(1994). Measuring Electoral Bias: Australia, 1949– 93. British Journal of Political Science.

Cite DOI

(1992). Split Parties Finish Last: Preferences, Pluralities and the 1957 Queensland Election. Australian Journal of Political Science.

Cite DOI

(1991). Bias and Responsiveness in State Legislative Districting. Legislative Studies Quarterly.

Cite DOI

(1991). Candidacies and Competitiveness in Multimember Districts. Legislative Studies Quarterly.

Cite DOI

(1991). Electoral Redistricting and Endogenous Partisan Control. Political Analysis.

Cite DOI

Contact