Academic interests
- Political psychology
- Electoral behavior and public opinion
- Democratic representation
- Bayesian statistics
- Development of new statistical models
- Experiments and quasi-experiments
- Time series and panel data analysis
Background
Bølstad has studied and worked abroad for about ten years. He started his studies with a BA in political science at the University of Oslo, and an MSc in international political economy at the London School of Economics. He then obtained a PhD in political science from the European University Institute (EUI), in Florence, Italy. During his PhD, he was PhD-Fellow of the Norwegian Research Council, and a Fulbright Fellow at Harvard University. After completing the PhD, he has mainly worked as a researcher and lecturer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), and at the University of Oslo. Bølstad has considerable experience in teaching research methods and statistics at the MA- and PhD-level.
Appointments
Bølstad is a member of the Norwegian Academy for Young Researchers – an organization founded in 2015, at the initiative of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. A presentation of Bølstad's work and his thoughts on academia can be found on AYF’s webpage, here, while press coverage of the announcement of the membership can be found here (both links are in Norwgian).
Dissemination and media activities
Bølstad har written for, or been interviewed by, most of the major newspapers in Norway (including Aftenposten, Morgenbladet, VG, Dagbladet, Klassekampen, and Dagsavisen). He has also appeared numerous times on TV and Radio (mainly on NRK1, NRK P2, and TV2 News Channel). Before the 2023 Norwegian election, he developed a new prediction model for NRK to use in live broadcasts on election nights. In addition, he is managing the website Estimite.com, which among other things analyses political party support over time and predicts election outcomes.
Teaching
Bølstad is responsible for quantitative methods courses STV4022 and STV4032. He is also responsible for the design seminar and participates in the midway assessment for PhD candidates.
Websites
Bølstad is managing two websites: Boelstad.net, which contains posts on statistics and programming, and Estimite.com, which presents applied political data science projects.
Software
Bølstad is author and maintainer the R package hbamr for estimation of ideological positions from survey data.