John Gastil (Communications Arts and Sciences) and Ben Johnson (Penn State Law)

John Gastil Distinguished Professor in Communication Arts and Sciences and Political Science and Senior Scholar at the
McCourtney Institute for Democracy. He specializes in political deliberation and group decision making. His newest books
are Hope for Democracy: How Citizens Can Bring Reason Back Into Politics (Oxford, 2020) with Katie Knobloch and Legislature by
Lot: Transformative Designs for Deliberative Governance (Verso, 2019) with Erik Olin Wright.

Professor Ben Johnson is an assistant professor of law at Penn State Law and holds affiliate faculty positions with the College of Information Sciences and Technology and the Department of Political Science in the College of the Liberal Arts. His research, which has been accepted for publication in journals including the Connecticut Law Review and the University of Illinois Law Review, focuses on how judges make decisions, the consequences of judicial decision making, and the normative implications of judicial processes. His innovative methods include a mix of statistical, machine learning, formal modeling, and legal analysis.