PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Arthur Spirling

Arthur Spirling is a political scientist whose work connects machine learning and language models with the study of political text. He studied at the London School of Economics, Oxford, and the University of Rochester, then held faculty posts at Harvard and NYU before joining Princeton in 2023. His research includes conText, a model for comparing word use across contexts, multilingual embedding resources for 157 languages, and a 2024 article arguing that researchers should justify proprietary language models. He won the Society for Political Methodology's Emerging Scholar Award in 2018. He is the Class of 1987 Professor of Politics and co-director of Princeton's Data and Intelligent Systems unit.

Works
288
Citations
2,452
h-index
24

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2000–2008

    Education at LSE and Rochester

    He earns a BSc in Government and Economics at the London School of Economics in 2000 and a master's degree in Public Administration and Public Policy there in 2001. He studies at Oxford's Nuffield College from 2001 to 2003, joins the University of Rochester's Political Science department in 2003, and defends his dissertation in 2008.

  2. 2008–2015

    Faculty posts at Harvard

    From 2008 to July 2012, he serves as an assistant professor in Harvard's Department of Government. From 2012 to 2015, he is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences.

  3. 2015–2023

    Associate professor at NYU

    He joins New York University as an associate professor of Politics and Data Science in July 2015. From 2016 to 2022, he serves as deputy director of its Center for Data Science and director of graduate studies for its MSDS program.

  4. 2018

    Emerging Scholar Award

    He wins the Society for Political Methodology's Emerging Scholar Award in 2018.

  5. January 2023

    Embedding regression with conText

    In January 2023, he coauthors conText, an embedding regression model based on pretrained language models that lets researchers compare word use across contexts and test hypotheses.

  6. July 2023

    Professor at Princeton

    He joins Princeton as the Class of 1987 Professor of Politics in July 2023, with research interests in text-as-data, natural language processing, and machine learning.

  7. 2024

    Proprietary language models in research

    In 2024, he coauthors a Nature Computational Science article with Alexis Palmer and Noah A. Smith arguing that academic research using proprietary language models requires explicit justification.

  8. July 2024–July 2026

    Society for Political Methodology president

    From July 2024 to July 2026, he serves as president of the Society for Political Methodology and head of APSA Section 10.

  9. April 2025

    Word embeddings for 157 languages

    In the April 2025 issue of Political Analysis, he and three coauthors present fastText and multilingual ALC embedding resources fitted to Wikipedia corpora. They provide resources for 40 languages and code to produce them for another 117.

  10. As of October 2026

    Co-directing Data and Intelligent Systems

    In 2026, he is the Class of 1987 Professor of Politics, directs Princeton Statistics and Data Science, and co-directs Data and Intelligent Systems with Tom Griffiths.

Career

  1. Since 2023Princeton UniversityClass of 1987 Professor of Politics
  2. NowPrinceton UniversityDirector
  3. NowPrinceton UniversityCo-director
  4. 2016–2022New York UniversityDeputy Director; Director of Graduate Studies
  5. 2015–2023New York UniversityAssociate Professor of Politics and Data Science
  6. 2012–2015Harvard UniversityJohn L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences
  7. 2008–2012Harvard UniversityAssistant Professor

Education

  1. 2008University of RochesterPhD
  2. 2003University of Oxford
  3. 2001London School of Economics and Political ScienceMaster's degree in Public Administration and Public Policy
  4. 2000London School of Economics and Political ScienceBSc in Government and Economics

From the biography.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Arthur Spirling's Vita arthurspirling.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  2. Emerging Scholar Award cambridge.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  3. Embedding Regression: Models for Context-Specific Description and Inference cambridge.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  4. Arthur Spirling to join Princeton Politics politics.princeton.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  5. Using proprietary language models in academic research requires explicit justification nature.com. Checked 27 October 2026.
  6. Multilanguage Word Embeddings for Social Scientists: Estimation, Inference, and Validation Resources for 157 Languages cambridge.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  7. Arthur Spirling arthurspirling.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  8. New Academic unit, DaIS, will be co-led by Arthur Spirling, the Class of 1987 Professor of Politics politics.princeton.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.