Gary Langer
Gary Langer, founder, and president of Langer Research Associates is an internationally recognized public opinion researcher with expertise in data analysis, questionnaire design, and survey methodology and management. He has overseen and analyzed many hundreds of surveys on public policy, politics, social and economic trends, health, education, consumer insights, and other topics.
A former longtime director of polling at ABC News, Langer has won two News Emmy awards and received 10 Emmy nominations, the first and only to cite public opinion polls. His work was recognized in the 2010 Policy Impact Award of the American Association for Public Opinion Research for analysis of a seven-year series of surveys in Afghanistan and Iraq, described in AAPOR’s citation as “a stellar example of high-impact public opinion polling at its finest.” His firm shared a 2015 David R. Ogilvy Award for Excellence in Advertising Research with ESPN and its research partners for work building audience for the inaugural College Football Playoff, which set cable TV viewership records.
Langer and his team created and operate the SEAN COVID-19 Survey Archive, a curated, public-facing, searchable database of probability-based attitudinal and behavioral surveys on the coronavirus pandemic, produced in support of the Societal Experts Action Network of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Mathematics, including a widely followed weekly summary of new pandemic-related surveys. Langer Research produced a groundbreaking survey on coronavirus vaccine hesitancy among Black Americans in fall 2020, as well as subsequent studies identifying key predictors of the public’s vaccine uptake intentions.
Langer is vice-chair of the Board of Directors of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research and past president of the New York chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. He’s a member of the Advisory Group of SEAN, a network of social science experts convened by the National Academies to connect policymakers, researchers, and the public with social, behavioral, and economic inquiry relating to the pandemic; a member of the Steering Committee of the American College Health Association’s Campus COVID-19 Vaccine Initiative; and a member of the Public Attitudes, Knowledge and Interest Expert Panel of the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.
Langer has authored or co-authored numerous scholarly papers, book chapters, and op-eds and given scores of invited presentations on the meaning and measurement of public opinion. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of New Hampshire, he grows tomatoes in Putnam County, N.Y.