Andrew Kohut

Andrew Kohut is the President of the Pew Research Center, in Washington, DC. He also acts as Director of the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press (formerly the Times Mirror Center for the People & the Press) and the Pew Global Attitudes Project. Kohut was President of The Gallup Organization from 1979 to 1989. In 1989, he founded Princeton Survey Research Associates, an attitude and opinion research firm specializing in media, politics, and public policy studies. He served as founding director of surveys for the Times Mirror Center 1990-1992, and was named its Director in 1993. Kohut was president of American Association of Public Opinion Research 1994-1995. He was president of the National Council on Public Polls 2000-2001, a member of the Market Research Council, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Kohut is a press commentator on the meaning and interpretation of opinion poll results. In recent national elections, he has served as a public opinion consultant and analyst for National Public Radio. Kohut often comments on public opinion for television news programs including the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He has written widely about public opinion for leading newspapers and magazines, as well as for scholarly journals. He is a frequent op-ed essayist for The New York Times and in the past has been a regular columnist for the Columbia Journalism Review and AOL News. Kohut has co-authored four books, including, mostly recently, America Against the World (Times Books) and The Diminishing Divide: Religion’s Changing Role in American Politics, (Brookings Institution Press). Kohut received the first Innovators Award from American Association of Public Opinion Research for founding the Pew Research Center. He also was given the New York AAPOR Chapter award for Outstanding Contribution to Opinion Research. Most recently he was awarded the 2005 American Association of Public Opinion Research’s highest honor, the Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement. Kohut received an A.B. degree from Seton Hall University in 1964 and studied graduate sociology at Rutgers, the State University, from 1964 to 1966.