Craig Charney

President

Craig Charney is a pollster and political scientist with more than two decades’ experience in over 45 countries. He is an expert in strategic communication, democracy promotion, and development evaluation. His clients include leaders in marketing, development, and security, from Samsung and Monsanto, to USAID and the World Bank, and the Defense Department and the International Peace Institute. He helped multinationals develop sales strategies for engineers in China and Vietnam and drivers in South Africa and India. His report on Muslim anti-Americanism for the Council on Foreign Relations helped shape public diplomacy in the second Bush and first Obama administrations. He was called to the White House to present his Afghanistan and Pakistan research in the Afghan strategy review. “If there is an expert on polling in the midst of turmoil, it is Craig Charney,” writes conservative commentator Ryan Sage. Liberal pundit Errol Louis calls him a “super-pollster.”    

Before creating Charney Research in 1997, Craig was Senior Analyst on President Clinton’s 1996 polling team. He also helped establish Nelson Mandela’s polling effort in South Africa’s first election in 1994.

Craig’s academic work focused on developing countries, particularly in Africa. He earned a Yale PhD in political science with a thesis on South Africa, a sociology of development diploma from the Sorbonne, where his thesis dealt with Senegal, and a politics MPhil at Oxford. He taught African politics at Yale and survey research at the New School. He has published scholarly articles on public opinion and African politics, four book-length studies based on polling in Asia, and numerous op-eds. He is a board member of New York’s American Marketing Association branch, belongs to the American Association for Public Opinion Research and the Society for International Development, and was named to USAID’s Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid by Administrator Henrietta Fore.

Demonstrated Experience Areas

Dina Smeltz

Senior Analyst

Dina Smeltz has over 20 years of experience in designing and fielding international social and political surveys. With a special emphasis on research in post-conflict situations, Dina has worked with research teams in Bosnia, Kosovo, Cyprus, Israel-Palestinian Territories and in Iraq (2003-2005). Dina has consulted for Charney Research on projects spanning women’s development in Afghanistan, civil society in Egypt and evaluating voter education efforts in Iraq.   

Dina worked as the director of research in the Middle East and South Asia division (2001-2007) and analyst/director of the European division (1992-2004) in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the US State Department’s Office of Opinion Research. In this position, she conducted over a hundred surveys in these regions and regularly briefed senior government officials on key research findings. Dina received three Superior Honor awards from the Department of State in addition to several other performance awards. She has an MA from the University of Michigan and a BS from Pennsylvania State University.

Demonstrated Experience Areas

Jeffrey Klonoski

Marketing Director

Jeffrey Klonoski, Marketing Director at Charney Research, has 6 years of experience managing development and corporate-based research studies in over 40 countries – with experience in many emerging and frontier markets. Development work includes: communications/messaging development for the World Wildlife Fund to inform certification of sustainable seafood, public opinion trends for the International Peace Institute in Palestine, Israel and Lebanon, voter education measurement & evaluation project in Iraq.  Market-based work includes: website usability for Skype, brand identity and engagement for FCB, product placement for Diageo and new product development for Samsung. Other clients include: ACNielsen, Nokia, LG, Oxygen, Lifetime, Baxter Health and Census 2010.

Before his work with Charney Research, Jeffrey worked as an e-commerce consultant assisting small to medium sized enterprises to develop business plans, identify key target markets, design and launch online and social media marketing campaigns. Jeffrey received a B.B.A. for business-to-business marketing from James Madison University.

Demonstrated Experience Areas

Christine Quirk

Senior Analyst

With two decades spent in U.S. politics, opinion research and international project management, Christine Quirk brings a unique combination of political campaign and communications skills, with experience conducting groundbreaking opinion research projects in some of the world's most challenging places. Strategically located in Istanbul, Turkey, she specializes in quantitative, qualitative and political project management in the developing world and conflict zones. She has been involved in groundbreaking research projects in Libya, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, Djibouti, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, among many other countries in the Middle East, Gulf, former Soviet Union and South Asia. Her clients include US- and Europe-based opinion researchers, USG contractors, Fortune 500 PR firms and NGOs.

Christine has worked, traveled or studied in more than 60 countries around the world, starting with post-Communist Poland in 1991 after graduating from Santa Clara University with a BS in Political Science. She was partner at the Portland, Oregon-based Democratic political polling firm Grove Quirk Insight and a National Democratic Institute Country Director (Azerbaijan).

Demonstrated Experience Areas

Dahlia Scheindlin

Senior Analyst

Dahlia Scheindlin is an international political and strategic consultant with expertise in public opinion with nearly 15 years of experience in 15 different countries. Dahlia has advised political campaigns on public opinion at the national level for incumbent leaders and Prime Minister and Presidential candidates in Israel, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria, Italy and Serbia. She has provided strategic advice for major public works projects, national referendum campaigns, democratic transition, minority relations and religion issues and has played an integral role in contributing public opinion analysis to conflict negotiations.

Dahlia is a doctoral candidate in political science at Tel Aviv University, received her Master's degree from Harvard University in 1997 and has taught adjunct at three universities. Dahlia has briefed former President Jimmy Carter and lectured at Oxford University, and provides media commentary. Dahlia has published in Dissent Magazine, Foreign Policy, New York Times, The Daily Beast, The Jerusalem Report, among others,  and blogs regularly for +972 Magazine mostly on political analysis, public opinion, international affairs and conflict analysis.

Demonstrated Experience Areas

Nicole Yakatan

Senior Analyst

Nicole Yakatan has more than twenty five years of experience in public opinion research and has specialized in focus group moderation and in-depth interviewing since 1997. She has managed more than 1200 quantitative and qualitative studies for corporate, association, government, and NGO clients, as well as political candidates. Nicole’s international research experience includes Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Israel. She has designed and conducted market research projects for many diverse industries and constituencies, including health care, law, education, technology, travel and tourism, consumer products, media, international trade, transportation, construction, energy and manufacturing. Her issue-oriented work is focused on the environment, health care, housing, workplace issues, law and justice, democracy and economic development, and vulnerable populations.

Nicole has worked with several stellar DC-based pollsters, including Stan Greenberg, Anna Greenberg, Al Quinlan, Mark Blumenthal, Celinda Lake and Harrison Hickman. Nicole received her BA from the University of Michigan in Political Science in 1989.

Demonstrated Experience Areas

Shehzad H. Qazi

Senior Project Manager

Shehzad H. Qazi, Project Manager at Charney Research, is a skilled researcher and analyst who manages the firm’s development, security and finance sectors projects, including the largest quarterly survey of the Chinese economy. Shehzad has extensive knowledge and experience in both qualitative and quantitative research. He has conducted polls in China, Syria, Afghanistan, and the US on behalf of clients such as USAID, Development Alternatives Inc., Monitoring Systems International, International Researches and Exchanges Board, Aptima, Dalberg, and CBB International.

Shehzad is also a research associate at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. He was previously a Junior Research scholar at New York University. Shehzad has published peer-reviewed articles, policy briefs and op-eds on terrorism and insurgencies and US foreign policy in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. He holds an M.A. in International Relations from New York University and received the 2010 Indiana University School of Liberal Arts Faculty Medal of Academic Distinction.

Demonstrated Experience Areas

Laurence Wilhelm

Senior Analyst

Laurence Wilhelm specializes in socio-economic and social development studies. Laurence has 30 years of experience with socio economic studies mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa (more than 20 countries in West, Central and East Africa) and in Cambodia. Laurence has experience with results monitoring, impact evaluation, quantitative and qualitative assessment studies that focus on beneficiary-level socio-economic costs and benefits. In 2012 and 2013 she managed the social components of the European Union energy, water and feeder roads project evaluation in Liberia.

She has an MA in Political Science from the Graduate Institute for High International Studies, University of Geneva (Switzerland) (1975) and Diploma of The Graduate Institute for Development Studies, University of Geneva (Anthropology)(1973). She was a Lecturer in the 1970s in Political Science at the IUED Institute, a researcher with UNRISD (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development), a researcher for 2 years research in Burkina Faso (1976-1978), and then freelance consultant from 1983 based in Paris. She is Fluent in French and English. Publication: Markets in Africa, Khartala Editions, Paris, 2001 (with T. Paulais, architect economist).

Demonstrated Experience Areas

Pascale Siegel

Senior Analyst

Pascale Combelles Siegel is a qualitative analyst with 20 years of experience in strategic influence, political communications, and opinion research. She has participated in or led research projects in the United States, France, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen for governmental clients (US), international institutions (NATO), and think tanks (NDU, FRS, C2SD). Recently, she has been a leading analyst of Iraqi and Afghan perceptions for the Human Terrain System.

Siegel is bilingual in French and English and holds bachelor degrees in journalism, history, and political science as well as a Master’s in political science from the University of Toulouse in France. She is widely published in French and English on both sides of the Atlantic.

Demonstrated Experience Areas

James Khalil

Senior Analyst

James has designed and analyzed various mixed method (quantitative and qualitative) research projects for clients such as the US DoD, USAID, DFID, NATO, WB, and various NGOs. He has a particular specialization in opinion polls in challenging environments such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and South Sudan. His article entitled ‘Neither Fact nor Fiction: The Validity of Opinion Polling in Afghanistan’ was published through the Households in Conflict Network in 2012.

He also has a thematic expertise in terrorism and insurgency, developed as a NATO Analyst in Afghanistan, as Technical Lead on numerous UK Ministry of Defence research projects relating to internal conflict, and through a doctorate in Conflict Studies at Leeds University (UK). The research for the latter was undertaken in remote parts of Nepal, and involved a survey conducted with local residents, focus groups, and over one-hundred interviews with subject matter experts, political leaders and ex-combatants. He has articles published on security themes in Small Wars and Insurgencies and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism journals.

Demonstrated Experience Areas

Max Currier

Office and Project Manager

Max Currier, Office and Project Manager at Charney Research, is an experienced researcher and administrator responsible for managing the firm’s finances and logistics in addition to supporting development, security, and finance projects. Max’s background in qualitative and quantitative research is complemented by his regional specialization and previous work experience in China. 

Max was previously the Director of Chinese Development at Arc Learning Group and an independent Mandarin tutor and interpreter. He holds B.A.s in East Asian Studies and Chinese Language and Literature from Connecticut College. 

Demonstrated Experience Areas