Scott Cooley is a Collegiate Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago. He received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 2021. Scott’s dissertation focused on the link between public opinion, national party platforms, and federal policy in the United States. As part of this research, he built large datasets that include public opinion data, party platform positions, and federal policy outcomes. Scott has a particular interest in how historically disadvantaged groups – including lower-income citizens, racial and ethnic minorities, and Indigenous people – influence public policy. His most recent work includes the construction and analysis of multiple datasets using a variety of archival sources related to the Indian Termination Era in the United States. Scott teaches courses in the Social Science Inquiry Sequence at the University of Chicago, in which students are exposed to a variety of social scientific techniques and gain an understanding of how empirical methods can be responsibly used to derive important policy insights.

In addition to his academic work, Scott also serves as chair of the board for Diamond Hill Investment Group, a publicly traded investment manager; as an advisory board member for T2 Capital Management; as a member of the board of managers for Lender.com; and as a director for the T2 Strategic Real Estate Income Fund, a private real estate investment trust.