Big Data isn't just for big business, it's for the people too. Simon Jackman believes that you can apply scientific principles to politics. In fact, he can prove it.

Simon Jackman is Professor of Political Science and (by courtesy) of Statistics at Stanford University, where he works at the intersection of statistics and the social sciences. He currently serves as one of the Principal Investigators of American National Election Studies, the world's longest-running and most authoritative survey-based study of political behaviour and attitudes.

Simon is a pioneer of "poll averaging" methods, developing Bayesian models and algorithms for tracking state-level polls and forming Electoral College forecasts. His work in the 2012 U.S. election cycle - which powered the Pollster section of huffingtonpost.com - was widely hailed as part of the "triumph of the quants", resulting in a perfect set of predictions of the election outcome in each state.

Simon has taught at Stanford, with previous appointments at the University of Chicago and the Australian National University. A book-length treatment of his work on Bayesian statistical methods, Bayesian Analysis for the Social Sciences, was published in 2009. He is a past president of Society for Political Methodology, is currently co-editor of Annual Reviews of Political Science, and an Associate Editor of the journal 'Political Analysis'.

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