Douglas Rivers

Influential scholar moving survey research into the internet era. Published key methodological articles in this area, but more importantly founded two companies (Knowledge Networks and Polimetrix) that provide survey researchers across many disciplines with unique tools and access to very large and cost effective panels to conduct survey experiments. Provided innovative statistical work in areas such as panel weighting and related issues of panel mortality and fatigue, and provided the infrastructure used by many investigators (including the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, the Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project and Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences). Conducted foundational work on testing econometric models and the estimation of Congressional ideal points using an IRT model and made important contributions to the theory of voting and particularly the role of the economy in the voting decision.