About:

Courtney Kennedy is director of survey research at Pew Research Center. In this role, she serves as the chief survey methodologist for the Center, providing guidance on all of its research and leading its methodology work. Prior to joining Pew Research Center, Kennedy served as vice president of the advanced methods group at Abt SRBI, where she was responsible for designing complex surveys, developing data collection methodologies and assessing data quality. Her work has been published in Public Opinion Quarterly, the Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology and the Journal of Official Statistics. She has worked as a statistical consultant on the U.S. Census Bureau’s decennial census and on multiple reports appearing in Newsweek. Kennedy has a doctorate from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree from the University of Maryland, both in survey methodology. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. Kennedy has served as standards chair and conference chair of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

Relevant Media Mentions

• “Lessons learned from polling fails in 2016 presidential election” on CBS 8 San Diego
• “How to read the polls in 2020 and avoid the mistakes of 2016” on PBS News Hour
• “What Pollsters Have Changed Since 2016 — And What Still Worries Them About 2020” on FiveThirtyEight
• “2020 is not like 2016. Here’s what’s different.” in Poynter
• “A pollster’s Halloween nightmare: An election decided within the margin of error” on MSNBC
• “What the polls tell us, and what they can’t” in Deseret News
• “Pollsters say Trump can still win despite what their numbers show” in the Beacon Herald
• “State pollsters baffled by shortcomings in 2020 election prognostication” in Connecticut Post

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