Robert (Reynolds) Gambhir

FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Robert (he/him) is a behavioral scientist whose passion is designing and quickly mainstreaming voter engagement innovations. He designed vote tripling in the wake of the 2016 election as his self-led, volunteer ‘resistance project’ conducting behavioral science research on scalable voter turnout tactics that spark non-activists to mobilize their friends to vote. After seeing dozens of campaigns quickly adopt the vote tripling tactics, Robert quit his job and partnered with David Slifka to found Vote Rev and Vote Rev Action Fund (previously VoteTripling.org). By 2020, Vote Rev and Vote Rev Action Fund was a 30-person full-time team whose innovations, such as polling place vote tripling, were used by the Biden campaign and over 200 other partner organizations.

Previously, Robert worked as a behavioral scientist at ideas42, a non-profit behavioral innovation lab, where he designed behavioral innovations and ran RCTs. Prior to ideas42, he was a 5th grade teacher at a Jesuit community-based organization in Quito, Ecuador.

Robert holds a BS from Loyola Marymount University, where he received the Ignatian Award, and a MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he worked under experts in behavioral science and voter turnout and was a Center for Public Leadership Fellow. He was born and raised in rural southeastern Montana, where his father’s family has lived since moving as homesteaders in the early 1900’s. Robert now lives in Los Angeles, where his mother’s family has lived since immigrating from Mexico in the 1950’s.