SHAUN RATCLIFF

I am a political scientist, applied data scientist and survey researcher.

As Principal at Accent Research, I work with clients to study how the public thinks and behaves, what influences their beliefs and actions, and ways to engage with them. 

I was previously Director of Data Science at YouGov, where I was responsible for leading a team working on complex social and political research projects. Prior to working at YouGov, I was a Lecturer at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. There, I taught American politics, research methods and data science; as well as running the Centre’s survey research program.

Since 2019 I have also been one of the chief investigators of the Australian Cooperative Election Survey. This has run at three elections so far (2019, ’22 and ’25), and is the largest academic election survey series in Australia.

I regularly engage in public discussions on voter attitudes and behaviours. My research has appeared in a range of academic publications (see some examples of my published research), and I have authored articles on and been interviewed about these topics for international and Australian media outlets (samples can be found here).

I also run occasional short courses and master classes with the Australian Consortium for Social & Political Research: Data Analysis in R, Spatial Analysis in R, and The Art of Survey Writing.

I have a PhD in political science from Monash University, and have previously worked at the University of Melbourne and Monash.

For more information, see my profile page on the United States Studies Centre website, and my Linkedin page.