Nicholas Dias, Ph.D.

Nic Dias studies whether citizens are good custodians of democracy.

His dissertation challenges the long-held belief that citizens' policy opinions are often "unprincipled" — that is, inconsistent with their underlying values and interests. Instead, he argues that citizens' opinions appear less principled than they are, due to flaws in how scholars have evaluated citizens' opinions. In other work, Dias has studied polarization's causes, consequences, and potential remedies.

Prior to attending the University of Pennsylvania, Dias worked as a staff researcher at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. Dias received his master’s degree in Journalism from the Columbia Journalism School, where he specialized in computational and data journalism. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Communication from the University of California, Davis.