D. Sunshine Hillygus is professor of political science and public policy at Duke University, where she is also director of the Initiative on Survey Methodology and co-director of the Polarization Lab. Her research focuses on public opinion, political communication, political behavior, and survey methodology, and has been funded by the National Science Foundation.
She is co-author of Making Young Voters: Converting Civic Attitudes into Civic Action (Cambridge University Press, 2020), The Persuadable Voter: Wedge Issues in Presidential Campaigns (Princeton University Press, 2008) and The Hard Count: The Political and Social Challenges of Census Mobilization (Russell Sage Foundation, 2006). The Persuadable Voter won the 2009 Robert E. Lane award for the best book in political psychology published in the previous year.
Hillygus is the author or co-author of numerous publications and research articles, serves on the editorial boards of many professional journals and is associate editor of Political Analysis. She was associate PI of the American National Election Study (2018-2021), served on the U.S. Census Bureau's Scientific Advisory Committee (2012-2018), and was a member of the American National Election Studies board (2010-2013, 2014-2017).
Hillygus has been recognized with numerous honors, awards and grants including the Henry and Bryna David Endowment award and lecture (National Academy of Sciences, 2020) and the Howard D. Johnson Distinguished Teaching Award (Duke University, 2019).
From 2003-2009, she taught at Harvard University, where she was the Frederick S. Danziger Associate Professor of Government and founding director of the Program on Survey Research.
