In this episode Eric interviews Jon Krosnick from Stanford University in Stanford, CA. Jon discusses his cross-appointments and major initiatives, including a new sustainability school funded by a $1.3–$1.4B private gift, hiring about 60 faculty members, and the role of Environmental Social Sciences in ensuring that engineered solutions work with human behavior. He describes the interdisciplinary challenges of building a new PhD core, admits difficulty saying no, and explains the Stanford Institute for Excellence in Survey Research and his focus on meticulous methodology. He recounts training at Harvard and Michigan's Institute for Social Research, Ohio State (18 years), and a fellowship that shaped his ethical perspective. Discussing activism, he says protests may not change attitudes but strongly signal constituent passion to lawmakers; attitude change is often small and short-lived, so campaigns focus on turnout. He also explains Census Bureau work improving household respondent selection protocols and shares his parallel career as a jazz drummer with long-running bands and about 200 performances a year.
[Note. Portions of the show notes were generated by Descript AI.]
