Dr. Jonathan Mellon

Dr. Jon Mellon is an Associate Professor at West Point’s Department of Systems Engineering. He serves as co-director of the British Election Study and advisor to the Systems Engineering Program. 

Dr. Mellon completed his DPhil in Sociology at Nuffield College with a thesis titled New Methods for New Data: Developing Techniques for Analysing Alternative Social Science Data. Before coming to West Point, he held faculty positions at the University of Oxford (2014-2020) and University of Manchester (2020-2022). 

Dr. Mellon has published 27 articles in peer reviewed journals including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Public Administration Review, British Journal of Political Science, and Public Opinion Quarterly as well as numerous book chapters and white papers. He also co-authored Electoral Shocks: The Volatile Voter in a Turbulent World with Oxford University Press (available open access). As part of his research, he has designed and fielded more than 40 surveys around the world. He has helped to win grants worth a total of $9 million across 14 awards. 

He currently co-advises four PhD candidates at the University of Manchester and several Honors theses at West Point. 

Dr. Mellon's research focuses on improving measurement and causal inference in social science. Substantively his research has focused on electoral behavior, online citizen engagement, and measuring public opinion. 

He has also consulted extensively for industry and international organizations including for the World Bank as a data scientist analyzing online civic engagement in developed and developing country contexts, for the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe, running statistical analysis of election observer reports and for the BBC on their election night coverage, and optimizing supply chains for US companies.