Matt Leighninger leads Public Agenda's work in public engagement and democratic governance and directs the Yankelovich Center for Public Judgment. Over the last 20 years, he has worked with public participation efforts in more than 100 communities, in 40 states and in four Canadian provinces. Before coming to Public Agenda, he was the executive director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium. Leighninger also has assisted in the development of Participedia, the world's largest online repository of information on public engagement.
Leighninger is the author of The Next Form of Democracy, published in 2006, and the co-author of Public Participation in 21st Century Democracy, published in 2015. He serves on the boards of e-democracy.org, the International Association for Public Participation, the Democracy Imperative and the Participatory Budgeting Project, and is a senior associate for Everyday Democracy. He holds a master's degree in public administration from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.
