Elizabeth Zechmeister

Elizabeth (Liz) Zechmeister is Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. She is an expert in comparative public opinion, political behavior, and international survey research. She has published 3 books and over 40 articles and book chapters on topics that include the role of the public in representation, elections, charisma, and crisis.

Prior to joining the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation as a Visiting Fellow for the 2024-2025 academic year, Zechmeister served as Director of LAPOP Lab where she led the team’s efforts to produce the award-winning AmericasBarometer survey. She also recently served as chair of another award-winning multinational project, the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. Her work on these and other projects has been supported by major grants from USAID and the US National Science Foundation (NSF), among others.

Zechmeister has taken on various roles in the discipline of political science. She co-directs an NSF-funded summer undergraduate experience program. She has led the Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior section of the American Political Science Association. She recently served as an expert and co-lead moderator on a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) panel on public opinion measurement and analysis. In 2022, for her contributions in research, Zechmeister was awarded Vanderbilt’s Earl Sutherland Prize for Achievement in Research. She also has received multiple awards for teaching and mentoring.

Zechmeister received her PhD from Duke University in 2003. After serving for five years on faculty at UC-Davis, she joined Vanderbilt’s Department of Political Science. She is just now completing a term as Associate Provost at Vanderbilt. While spending her sabbatical year at the Ash Center, Zechmeister will be working on several projects that investigate factors that shape public opinion on democracy and its core principles.