Costas Panagopoulos

Costas Panagopoulos is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Politics at New York University. His academic research focuses on American Politics, with an emphasis on campaigns and elections, voting behavior and public opinion. He also serves as Executive Director of the Political Campaign Management Program in the department, an initiative he founded that trains students in the art of practical electioneering. A former candidate for the Massachusetts State Legislature in 1992, Mr. Panagopoulos offers courses in the program that focus on campaign strategy and message development, political advertising and media strategy.

Panagopoulos is presently a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University. Previously, Panagopoulos was Scholar-in-Residence in the Department of Government at American University where he was also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies. Panagopoulos has taught as an adjunct faculty member in the Political Science departments at the New School University, SUNY, Yeshiva University, and Pace University.

Panagopoulos was elected President of the American Association of Political Consultants' Mid-Atlantic chapter in 2003. He has also developed expertise in international political consulting and has worked as a consultant in the Electoral Assistance Division at the United Nations. Previously, Mr. Panagopoulos developed professional specializations in the marketing, media and public relations industries. He worked for top domestic and international clients—including the United Nations—as a member of the Public Affairs and Crisis Management units at Burson-Marsteller, the world's largest public relations firm. He then joined Adweek magazine as Features Editor to analyze the political advertising of the 1996 presidential campaign. He subsequently held positions at Hearst, Conde Nast and Miramax where he developed additional expertise in marketing. He now runs “XVOTES,” a small, independent political consulting firm.

A native of Lowell, Massachusetts, and the son of immigrants from Greece, Mr. Panagopoulos received his undergraduate degree in Government, magna cum laude , from Harvard University. He earned his Master's degree in Politics from New York University. Panagopoulos has authored several scholarly works, including articles that have appeared in Campaigns & Elections magazine. He has provided political analysis for such media outlets as the New York Times , CNN, Fox News and BBC Television.

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Grant Reeher

Grant is currently an Associate Professor of Political Science and a Senior Research Associate in the Center for Policy Research at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He has been on the faculty at Union College in Schenectady, NY. From 1995 to 1997, he was at the University of Michigan as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholar in Health Policy Research.

His areas of research are American politics and political theory, with concentrations on democratic theory, state legislative politics, political beliefs, and health care politics and policy. His publications include the books Education for Citizenship: Ideas and Innovations in Political Learning and Narratives of Justice: Legislators' Beliefs about Distributive Fairness and articles titled “More a Distinction of Words than Things: The Evolution of Separated Powers in the American States,” and “In Search of the Angry White Male: Gender, Race, and Issues in the 1994 Elections.” He received his BA from Dartmouth College and his MA and PhD degrees from Yale University.

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Jonah Seiger

Jonah Seiger, a former practioner in residence at IPDI, is one of the country's most recognized political and public affairs Internet strategists. For over a decade, Seiger has led winning Internet-centered communications programs for some of America's most influential associations, issue groups, and Fortune 500 companies. In 1998, Seiger placed some of the first online political-issue ads, and has since developed and managed hundreds of millions of online ad impressions for a wide variety of clients.

Seiger has deep roots in the Internet world. In 1994, he helped found and served as Communications Director for the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a leading non-profit organization focusing on civil liberties and democratic values online. While at CDT, The New York Times described him as “a trench warrior in the battle to democratize cyberspace,” in reference to his role in the landmark Supreme Court case establishing broad First Amendment protection for the Internet.

In 1997 Seiger co-founded Mindshare Internet Campaigns, LLC and built the company into one of the country's leading providers of Internet services for public affairs. Seiger previously worked on Internet-related policy issues with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and with Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-MA) on the House Subcommittee for Telecommunications and Finance.

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Christine Williams

Christine Williams is currently a Professor of Government at Bentley College. She received her B.A. from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, and both her M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Indiana University. She has been teaching at Bentley College since 1986, where she specializes in American Politics. She currently also serves on the College's Research Advisory Committee.

In 2004, she received the Faculty Affairs Grant of Bentley College to study the role of MeetUp.com in the 2004 Presidential elections. Some of her conclusions from this research are scheduled to be published in an upcoming article in Campaigns and Elections. She has recently been interviewed by the Philadelphia Inquirer, CNN and the Boston Globe.

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