Gabor Simonovits

Gabor Simonovits is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Central European University (CEU), with affiliate roles in the Undergraduate Studies and the Doctoral School of Political Science, Public Policy, and International Relations. He holds a PhD in Politics from New York University (2018), an MA in Politics from Stanford University, an MA in Economics from CEU (2011), and a BA in Applied Economics from Corvinus University. His research bridges substantive and methodological inquiry in public opinion studies, focusing on attitudes toward public policies in the U.S., inter-group prejudice in Hungary, and quantitative methods addressing researcher incentives in experimental studies.

Simonovits teaches courses on research methods and political behavior at CEU. His work appears in top journals such as Science, the American Political Science Review, and the American Journal of Political Science. He has conducted field experiments on discrimination in housing and ride-sharing platforms, analyzed federalism and abortion law dynamics post-Dobbs, and explored communication strategies in political scandals. His methodological contributions address publication bias and experimental design transparency.

Notable collaborations include interventions to reduce anti-Roma discrimination in Hungary’s rental market and studies on democratic erosion’s psychological underpinnings. Simonovits has organized departmental seminars on topics ranging from substance use regulation to electoral autocracy campaigning. His research emphasizes bridging empirical rigor with real-world policy implications, particularly in contexts of democratic backsliding and social inequality.