Molly Murphy
President of Impact Research
Navin Nayak
Counselor and President, Center for American Progress Action Fund
Patrick Ruffini
Founding Partner, Echelon Insights
Gregory J. Wawro, Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science; Program Director, Political Analytics
Analytics is a driving force in politics and advocacy today. Whether it’s developing content and ads across media, fundraising for causes or campaigns, building a social platform, getting people to register or vote, or helping to define and defend a political strategy—if it’s not data-driven, it’s dead on arrival. In this robust conversation with right- and left-leaning leaders in the use of data in politics and advocacy, you will learn about how the numbers will determine tomorrow’s victories—and defeats.
Event details:
- 5:15 p.m. – Doors open / Networking
- 6:00 p.m. – Panel discussion and Q&A
- 7:00 p.m. – Reception
This event is hosted by Columbia School of Professional Studies.
This event is open to the public and the Columbia community including alumni, prospective and current students, faculty, and their guests.
An admissions counselor will be available to speak with interested prospective students at this event. For additional information about program offerings at Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies, please contact an admissions counselor at 212-854-9666 or [email protected].
For further information please contact [email protected].
Molly Murphy
President of Impact Research
Molly Murphy is a top pollster and campaign strategist who has worked on some of the most consequential campaigns in recent history. Murphy has experience with hundreds of statewide, congressional, and local races all over the country, helping elect Democrats in Republican and swing districts on top of making it possible for Democrats to prevail in competitive primaries. In addition to her work with candidates, Murphy serves as a lead advisor for the DCCC, as well as closely supporting the DSCC and DGA to elect Democrats across the country.
Navin Nayak
Counselor and President, Center for American Progress Action Fund
Navin Nayak serves as counselor at the Center for American Progress and president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. He oversees day-to-day management of the Action Fund and helps create new programs and projects that will assist the organization in fulfilling its mission.
Nayak has more than 15 years of experience in advocacy and elections with several organizations. Most recently, Nayak served as the director of opinion research for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, where he oversaw all the campaign’s message research. Prior to that, he worked for eight years at the League of Conservation Voters, where, among several roles, he served as senior vice president for campaigns, overseeing all the organization’s electoral work. He also served as the deputy director for the Clean Energy Works campaign, a national multimillion-dollar effort to pass comprehensive climate legislation in 2009–2010.
In addition to his advocacy experience, Nayak worked as a donor advisor at Corridor Partners, where he provided strategic guidance to donors on their advocacy and electoral investments.
Patrick Ruffini
Founding Partner, Echelon Insights
Over the past 15 years, Patrick Ruffini has advanced the digital and data-driven transformation of politics in numerous roles, most recently as a cofounder of Echelon Insights, a next-generation polling, analytics, and intelligence firm.
Ruffini began his career as one of the country’s first political-digital practitioners, starting at the Republican National Committee in 2002. He managed grassroots technology and outreach for President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign and returned to the RNC to run digital strategy in 2006. As the founder of Engage, a leading right-of-center digital agency, Ruffini would apply these lessons learned at the presidential level to political campaigns nationally and internationally, the advocacy and nonprofit worlds, the Fortune 50, and beyond.
In 2014 he cofounded Echelon Insights to evolve the traditional ways that organizations collect information to drive strategy. Ruffini leads the firm’s analytics and technology practices, helping a wide array of clients craft more persuasive messages, manage crises, and reach audiences more cost-effectively.
As a writer and public speaker, Ruffini offers insights on political, demographic, and technology trends that are often highlighted by national media. He has contributed to publications including The Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight, Politico, and National Review; has been featured in The New York Times, Time, and Newsweek; and has appeared as a political analyst for NPR.
Gregory J. Wawro, Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science; Program Director, Political Analytics
Professor Gregory Wawro is the director and founder of the M.S. in Political Analytics program. He previously served as the chair of the Department of Political Science at Columbia. He holds his Ph.D. from Cornell University and specializes in American politics, including Congress, elections, campaign finance, judicial politics, political economy, and political methodology. He is the author of Legislative Entrepreneurship in the U.S. House of Representatives and coauthor (with Eric Schickler) of Filibuster: Obstruction and Lawmaking in the United States Senate, which is a historical analysis of the causes and consequences of filibusters. His most recent book, Time Counts: Quantitative Analysis for Historical Social Science (with Ira Katzelson), seeks to advance historical research in the social sciences by bridging the divide between qualitative and quantitative analysis through an expansion of the standard quantitative methodological toolkit with a set of innovative approaches that capture nuances missed by more commonly used statistical methods. Professor Wawro is currently working on projects that explore the role that social media is playing in congressional elections and democratic participation.
