In the US, public opinion specialist Andrew Kohut is stepping down from his role as President of the Pew Research Center at the end of 2012, but has agreed to stay on as a Senior Research Adviser, focusing on international and domestic public opinion analysis.

The Washington-based Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, and conducts public opinion polling, demographic research and other empirical social science research to inform the public, the press and policymakers.

Kohut currently serves as both President of the center and as Director of two of its units - Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and Pew Global Attitudes Project. During the transition, he will hand over those direct management roles, while remaining involved as a Senior Adviser to both projects and to the center.

Rebecca Rimel, President and CEO of The Pew Charitable Trusts, comments: ‘Under Andy Kohut's leadership, the Pew Research Center has become one of the most trusted sources of facts and analysis on issues, attitudes and trends in America and the world.’

Kohut was a student of George Gallup and served as President of The Gallup Organization from 1979 to 1989. He then founded polling firm Princeton Survey Research Associates, and became the founding Director of Surveys for the Times Mirror Center for the People & the Press. He later became the Pew Research Center’s first President.

In addition to overseeing the center's research agenda, Kohut has also served as a public opinion Consultant and Analyst for National Public Radio, and has been a frequent op-ed contributor for a number of newspapers.

In 2005, the American Association for Public Opinion Research awarded him its highest honor, the Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement, calling him ‘the public face of opinion research to millions of Americans’.

Web site: www.pewresearch.org .

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