Adam J. Berinsky

Adam J. Berinsky is the Mitsui Professor of Political Science at MIT. Berinsky received his B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1992 and his PhD. from the University of Michigan in 2000. He is a specialist in the fields of political behavior and public opinion with over 20 years of experience in survey design and analysis. For the last decade, Berinsky has been studying political rumors and misinformation.

Berinsky is the author of Silent Voices: Public Opinion and Political Participation in America (Princeton University Press, 2004), In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq (University of Chicago Press, 2009) and the editor of New Directions in Public Opinion (Routledge, 2017). He has also published articles in many academic journals. 

Berinsky has won several scholarly awards, is the recipient of multiple grants from the National Science Foundation, and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He is also the founding director of the MIT Political Experiments Research Lab.  In 2016, Berinsky was appointed a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow to study how political rumors spread and how they can be effectively debunked.

Berinsky has spoken to numerous academic, professional, and public groups about his research, including many regional chapters of the MIT alumni association, attendees at the Newbo Evolve Festival, various divisions at Facebook, Google and, the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation. He has also briefed the Democratic Congressional Caucus, senior State Department officials, officials at the Department of Homeland Security, the US Department of Defense Strategic Multilayer Assessment program and senior members of the Finnish and Swedish government about the implications of his research for developing policy strategies.