The New Normal After COVID-19

Joe Mathieu is the anchor and executive editor of WGBH’s Morning Edition.

Before joining WGBH Radio, Joe worked for six years as morning anchor on WBZ NewsRadio in Boston, where he was part of the team that received a Peabody Award for coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings. Joe also received the Edward R. Murrow Award for best newscast in a major market. While at WBZ, Joe covered major political conventions, traveled to Rome for the Papal conclave, and broadcast live from a nuclear aircraft carrier deployed in the fight against ISIS. He provided regular field reports and analysis for WBZ-TV.

Saraya Wintersmith covers the Boston neighborhoods of Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury. Before joining WGBH News, she worked as a statehouse reporter, producing radio and television stories for WCVE in Richmond, Va. Saraya lives in Boston, and holds a journalism degree from Howard University.

David Paleologos is the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center (SUPRC), where he has worked since 2002 conducting statewide polls and bellwether survey analyses in Massachusetts and elsewhere. SUPRC presidential primary polls have predicted outcomes in many key battleground states. SUPRC’s cutting-edge survey research has gained both national and international attention for its high degree of accuracy. SUPRC results have been reported on by hundreds of major news organizations on television, radio, in print, and online. The SUPRC bellwether model, authored by David, is designed to predict outcomes, not margins of victory. Used both locally and nationally, the model has an 85% accuracy rating in predicting straight-up winners.

In addition to his duties as director of the research center, David is also a lecturer in the College of Arts & Sciences’ Government Department, where he teaches Political Survey Research. In this intensive, immersive course, students create, implement and analyze their own survey during the semester, and experts in the field, including campaign staffers, candidates, fundraisers, and media luminaries, frequently guest lecture.

Before beginning his career in academia, David was one of the Bay State’s most sought-after pollsters and field operatives. He is a frequent guest lecturer on the political survey process at a number of New England-area schools and institutions. A graduate of Tufts University, David is a member of the American Association of Public Opinion Research and the Northeast Political Consultants Association, and sits on the board of the Rappaport Center for Law & Public Service at the Suffolk University Law School.

Bob Seay is the transportation reporter for WGBH News.

He formerly hosted Morning Edition for WGBH News, and has worked as a broadcast journalist for more than three decades. Before joining WGBH in October 2010, Bob was Morning Edition host at Rhode Island Public Radio and the director of community radio station WOMR in Provincetown. For more than 15 years, he was the news and public affairs director at WQRC in Hyannis covering Cape Cod and the islands. Bob has also worked as a host on WBUR.

Rachael V. Cobb, Ph.D. is Chair of the Political Science & Legal Studies Department at Suffolk University and Associate Professor of Political Science. Cobb specializes in U.S. elections, election administration, electoral politics, civic engagement, and political participation. In 2006, with a grant from the United States Election Assistance Commission, Cobb established the University Pollworkers Project, a nonpartisan program designed to recruit college students as poll workers. Since then, more than 1,000 students from the Greater Boston area have received training and worked as poll workers.

In 2008, Professor Cobb served as co-principal investigator on the Boston Area Colleges Exit Poll, in collaboration with D. James Greiner (Harvard Law School) and Kevin Quinn (Harvard Government Department). Her work as appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Political Science and Studies in American Political Development. Professor Cobb serves on the board of MassVOTE and the Boston Election Advisory Committee. She received her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her AB from Bryn Mawr College.