Justin Gross

Justin Gross is an associate professor of Political Science and the Director of the Data Analytics and Computational Social Science program.

His research interests include U.S. and comparative ideologies, political communication in mass and social media, public opinion, and the intersection of identity and political beliefs. He works on methodological problems in measurement, text analysis, and network analysis, and is especially interested in methods that put statistical and computational tools to use in service of our ability to achieve rich qualitative insights. He has published work in the American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, and several other journals and edited volumes.

He is currently working on projects related to how media activists and politicians (opinion elites) invoke core values in order to frame arguments while at times contesting the very meanings and appropriate applications of these values. In related work, he and coauthors are examining the processes by which extreme ideas may move from the fringe to the mainstream in contemporary U.S. political discussion. More generally, he is interested in the role of ideas in connecting political elites and the ideologically engaged public. He draws on scholarship by historians, social psychologists, and mass media & communication scholars, in addition to work by those who study political behavior and identities.

Gross holds a PhD in Statistics and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon and received an MS in Statistics and an MS in Public Policy & Management from Carnegie Mellon and an MS in Mathematics from Salem State University. He also has a bachelor's degree in Latin American Studies from Brown University.