Join Us

Housed in Princeton, New Jersey, the Lab provides research to guide leaders, reformers, and government institutions in strengthening U.S. democracy. Our approach, anchored in research and data analytics, provides near real-time answers designed to impact quick-moving decisions by institutions and the public. Today, our projects focus on testing ways to make democracy more representative and responsive: ranked-choice voting, fair and open primaries, and innovations in redistricting.

Thus far, the Lab’s scholarly and policy projects involved the work of several dozen undergraduate and graduate students. Many have gone on to dedicate further important work to democracy. Former staff and alumni have taken on positions at the National Conference of State Legislators, Demos, the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Fair Elections Center, Carnegie Mellon University, the Election Lab at MIT, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and Schmidt Futures. 

The Lab continues its professional development programming by hosting interns, fellows, and mentors across the nation to engage in priority projects. If you are interested in collaborating with us on a project, or would like to inquire about our work opportunities, email us at admin@electoral-lab.org.

Sam Wang, Founding President

Sam Wang serves as the founding director of the Electoral Innovation Lab. Professor Wang has over two decades of experience translating data and science into practical action in American politics. With degrees in physics and neuroscience, he has taught and led research and policy work at Princeton University since 2000. Professor Wang’s past projects have included the Princeton Election Consortium, the Gerrymandering Project, and Representable. During his tenure, he oversaw partnerships with the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Justice, the Attorney General of Maine, Secretary of State of Michigan, and nonpartisan citizen organizations including RepresentUS, Fair Districts GA, OneVirginia2021, and Open Primaries.

Professor Wang served as the technical consultant on both of New Jersey’s redistricting commissions, for U.S. House districts (Congressional Commission, December 2021) and for legislative districts (Apportionment Commission, February 2022). The legislative map was approved by a bipartisan vote - the only time this has occurred in the history of the Commission. With the help of EIL staff, he contributed to this historic accomplishment by providing technical assistance to the tiebreaking commissioner at every step of the process. Professor Wang has also worked as an expert and assisted the special master in key redistricting cases in North Carolina.

Board of Directors

  • Robert F. Johnston

    BOARD PRESIDENT

    Robert F. Johnston founded Johnston Associates, a venture capital firm, in 1968 to provide seed capital for start-ups emerging in the biotechnology and healthcare fields. During his career, he founded numerous public companies including Sepracor (acquired by Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Co), Cytogen (acquired by EUSA Pharma), and I-STAT (acquired by Abbott). Johnston is founder and president of Educational Ventures, a private foundation. He received his B.A. from Princeton University and his M.B.A. from New York University. Johnston was a member of the Advisory Council of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University for 20 years.

  • Jane Manners

    BOARD SECRETARY

    Jane Manners is a legal historian and an assistant professor of law at Temple Law School. She has a BA and a JD from Harvard and a PhD from Princeton, and she served as a clerk for Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Professor Manners has also worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a grantmaker for the Open Society Institute, where she focused on democracy reform efforts in the United States. Her writing has appeared in the Fordham Law Review, the Columbia Law Review,  The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Nation, among other publications. 

  • Kyle Barnes

    BOARD TREASURER

    Kyle Barnes is a Product Manager at Schmidt Futures and served as the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Representable. He is based in Brooklyn, NY, and graduated from Princeton University where he studied Human-Computer Interaction. 

Collaborators and Mentors

  • Jonathan Cervas, Ph.D.

    Jonathan serves as research associate and collaborator with the Electoral Innovation Lab. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and a masters and PhD from the University of California Irvine. He specializes in American politics and has published in numerous scholarly journals on the Electoral College and Redistricting in outlets including PNAS, Election Law Journal, Social Science Quarter, PS: Political Science and Politics, Public Choice, and several law reviews.

  • Keena Lipsitz, Ph.D.

    Keena is a professor of political science at Queens College and The Graduate Center. She conducts research on elections and polarization in the US. Her research has been published in numerous journals including PNAS, Political Behavior, and Journal of Political Philosophy, and she has authored or co-authored several books, including Competitive Elections and the American Voter and Campaigns and Elections.

  • Kyle Barnes

    Kyle is the Executive Director of Representable. Kyle created Representable for a class project alongside a group of computer science students at Princeton University. The platform grew rapidly from that initial design, and Kyle played a central role in shepherding its development. Kyle, a former champion figure skater, is now also a fellow at Schmidt Futures.

  • Bernard Grofman, Ph.D.

    Bernard is the Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. He is a leading expert on redistricting from theory to practice. In 2021 and 2022 he served as a special master on district map redrawings in Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina, and was a consultant to the New York state court that handled New York's congressional redistricting.

  • Juan Cruz

    2024 SUMMER MENTOR

  • Gene Mazo

    2023 SUMMER MENTOR

  • Simon Levin

    2023 SUMMER MENTOR

  • Naomi Leonard

    2023 SUMMER MENTOR

  • Jack Santucci

    2023 SUMMER MENTOR

  • Zachariah Sippy

    2023 SUMMER MENTOR

  • Deb Otis

    2023 SUMMER MENTOR

Interns and Fellows

  • Lia Opperman

    2025 FELLOW

  • Aqua Withers Carello

    2025 FELLOW

  • Adiva Dutta

    2024 SUMMER FELLOW

  • Paul Soltys

    2024 SUMMER FELLOW

  • Alice Gadau

    2024 SUMMER FELLOW

  • Phousawanh Peaungvongpakdy

    2024 SUMMER FELLOW

  • Ethan Arsht

    2023 SUMMER INTERN

  • Hayden Goldberg

    2023 SUMMER INTERN

  • Noah Bardash

    2023 SUMMER INTERN

  • Mahshad Habibpourparizi

    2023 SUMMER INTERN

  • Eric Simpson

    2023 SUMMER INTERN

  • Grace Geier

    2023 SUMMER INTERN