Michael Podhorzer, President
Michael Podhorzer is the former political director of the AFL-CIO. In addition to co-founding Research Collaborative, he founded the Analyst Institute, the Defend Democracy Project, and the Polling Consortium, and helped found America Votes, Working America, For Our Future, and Catalist. In 2020, Podhorzer played a pivotal organizing role in the effort to prevent Trump from overturning the election results, and his early leadership in evidence-driven politics was documented in the 2013 book The Victory Lab. He is now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
After retiring from the AFL-CIO, Mike began publishing his public Substack, Weekend Reading, to share his work more broadly. He now hosts regular livestreams with Research Collaborative’s Anat Shenker-Osorio, as well as experts in law, history, politics, psychology, and language, to discuss how we got where we are and strategies for confronting the fascist threats we face.
Anat Shenker-Osorio, Senior Advisor
Co-founder of Research Collaborative, host of the Words to Win By podcast, and founder and principal of ASO Communications, Anat Shenker-Osorio examines why certain messages falter where others deliver. She has led research for new messaging on issues ranging from the freedom to join together in union to clean energy and from immigrant rights to reforming criminal justice. Anat’s original approach through priming experiments, task-based testing, and online dial surveys has led to progressive electoral and policy victories across the globe. Anat delivers her findings packed in snark at venues such as the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Centre for Australian Progress, Irish Migrant Centre, Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation, and LUSH International. Her work is profiled in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Boston Globe, Salon, The Guardian and Grist among others. She is the author of Don’t Buy It: The Trouble with Talking Nonsense About the Economy.
Derek Johnson, Chief Executive Officer
Derek Johnson has spent 15 years working the seam of institutional power and people power. He is CEO of Research Collaborative, focused on understanding how Americans are experiencing this moment in order to help the pro-democracy movement sharpen narrative strategy and build an America that lives up to its ideals.
Before RC, Derek spent much of his career at the helm of Global Zero, the international movement to abolish nuclear weapons, which earned a Nobel nomination under his leadership. There he combined youth organizing and backchannel diplomacy with campaigns leveraging A-list Hollywood talent, and pushed the field to link disarmament to racial and economic justice, climate, democracy and public health. In 2016, he co-founded Beyond the Bomb to deploy a new generation of leaders steeped in that approach, serving as board president.
Across those chapters, he has wrestled with the same question: whether everyday people get a say in the decisions that govern their futures.
He serves on the boards of Groundwork USA, a climate resilience network, and Next 100, a justice-centered conservation coalition. He is also a member of Munich Young Leaders, a Körber Foundation and Munich Security Conference network of rising global security experts, and European Young Leaders, a Friends of Europe effort to bridge divides between citizens and political elites. In 2021, the National Iranian American Council named him one of 40 Under 40 Iranian Americans who “inspired, trail-blazed, and made a lasting impact in the world.”
Derek’s work appears in major outlets including The New York Times, TIME, The Washington Post, Politico, USA Today, BBC, Kommersant, and Der Spiegel. He holds a JD from Boston College Law School and a BA in English and philosophy from Cornell College.
Tara P. Buss, Senior Director of Research
Dr. Tara P. Buss brings over a decade and a half of experience in public opinion research to her work as the Senior Director of Research. She has overseen hundreds of focus groups and surveys, generating insights that equip the progressive movement in the fight to protect our freedoms against authoritarian threats.
Tara’s research career spans the U.S. and Mexico. Before joining RC, she served as Research Director at the Mexico office of a global consulting firm, where she directed public opinion research for presidential, gubernatorial, and senatorial campaigns. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California - Berkeley, with academic expertise in political behavior, perceptions of violence, and Mexican politics.
In addition to her research, Tara mentors students at her alma maters, UC San Diego and UC Berkeley, and serves on the board of the Center for U.S. Voters Abroad.
