Douglas Rivers is an American political scientist. He is Professor of Political Science at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and Senior Fellow at the

Hoover Institution The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace; abbreviated as Hoover) is an American public policy think tank and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, and ...

. He also served as the president and CEO of YouGov/Polimetrix and is currently the global polling firm's chief scientist.

Biography

Rivers received his B.A. from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1977 and Ph.D. from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1981. Before joining the Stanford faculty in 1989, he taught at

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

, and

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. In 1996, Rivers founded Preview Systems, a publicly trading maker of software for distributing and licensing music and software over the Internet. He co-founded Knowledge Networks in 1998 to provide public opinion survey tools and access to very large and cost-effective panels to conduct survey experiments through the

WebTV MSN TV (formerly WebTV) was a web access product consisting of a thin client device that used a television for display (instead of using a computer monitor), and the online service that supported it. The device design and service was developed by ...

box A box (plural: boxes) is a container used for the storage or transportation of its contents. Most boxes have flat, parallel, rectangular sides. Boxes can be very small (like a matchbox) or very large (like a shipping box for furniture), and can ...

, yielding an overall response rate that is higher than most polling firms. His company was contracted by

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

and

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

to carry out surveys. He was named "executive of the year by the ''Research Business Report'' in 2000. He founded the firm Polimetrix, which was acquired by

YouGov YouGov is a British international Internet-based market research and data analytics firm, headquartered in the UK, with operations in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. In 2007, it acquired US company Polimetrix, and sinc ...

in 2007, and has led the company's American business until 2011, when he was named chief scientist of

. Rivers was elected a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 2015. He is also a director of the

Roper Center for Public Opinion Research __NOTOC__ The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University is the world's oldest archive of social science data and the largest specializing in data from public opinion surveys. It's collection includes over 24,000 datasets and ...

and

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rivers, Douglas Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American political scientists Pollsters Hoover Institution people Stanford University faculty Harvard University faculty California Institute of Technology faculty University of California, Los Angeles faculty Columbia College (New York) alumni Harvard University alumni Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences