Todd Hartman

Todd Hartman is Professor of Quantitative Social Science in the Department of Social Statistics, The University of Manchester. His research explores the psychological underpinnings of public opinion and behaviour using cutting-edge research methods and statistical analysis. His work has been published in prestigious peer-reviewed academic journals such as Nature Communications, Nature: Scientific Reports, Psychological Medicine, Big Data & Society, British Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Social Psychological and Personality Science, Political Psychology, Political Communication, and The Geographical Journal.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor Hartman worked with an interdisciplinary team to study the impact of COVID-19 on the British public. This project secured early funding from the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and has collected nationally representative panel data from multiple survey waves of respondents beginning when the first UK Lockdown was announced (on 23 March 2020). This unique collaboration is only one of two social science research teams to receive ESRC funding to collect new longitudinal survey data since the start of the pandemic to study the implications of COVID-19 on adults living in the UK. While this project has been immensely challenging, given the speed with which things have changed locally, nationally, and internationally, it has also been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (hopefully!) to study a global health crisis which has wrought about such societal upheaval. This project is also making an impact outside of academia, as Professor Hartman and his colleagues are regularly in contact with Public Health England, the NHS, the Cabinet Office, and others working in the public interest.