Stephen Pettigrew is the Deputy Executive Director of the Fox Leadership Program and Associate Director of Data Sciences for UPenn’s Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies. He also is a Senior Analyst for the NBC News Data Analytics Lab and Election Night Decision Desk.
His political science research applies quantitative methods to timely questions about the way in which elections are run in the United States. This work informs broader political discussions about representation, accountability, race, and effective governance. His research has been featured in several peer-reviewed journals including Science, Political Science Quarterly, and Electoral Studies.
In addition to political science, Dr. Pettigrew studies sports analytics and works to bring the insights of data science and social science into this burgeoning field. He has published sports analytics research in peer-reviewed journals and is a contributor to FiveThirtyEight, the Wall Street Journal, and Deadspin.
Prior to coming to Penn, Dr. Pettigrew was a project manager and data scientist with the MIT Election Data and Science Lab. He attended Harvard for graduate school, receiving a PhD in political science in 2017 and a Masters in statistics in 2013. He graduated from the University of Georgia with a Masters degree in political science and Bachelors degrees in political science and history.