When asked about his current occupation, Daniel Yankelovich begins his answer with a sigh. "Well, I'm supposed to be retired," he says. "But if retirement were a class, I'd be flunking."

He's not kidding. The "retired" pollster still keeps a schedule that would wear out most people half his age, participating in numerous advisory boards, trusteeships and corporate directorships as well as serving as chairman of three companies he founded: Viewpoint Learning, Inc., a dialogue-building firm that advances learning and civic engagement; DYG, Inc., a firm that tracks social and market trends; and The Public Agenda, a non-partisan public policy research organization.

Prior to his retirement, Yankelovich spent more than 40 years monitoring social change and public opinion in America and is perhaps best known for founding The New York Times/Yankelovich poll, now known as The New York Times/CBS News poll. While he is often referred to as the "dean of American pollsters" for his contributions to the field, the irony is that Yankelovich never set out to work in this profession.

"When I was in college, market research and polling was the last thing I thought I'd get into," he says. "It's just funny how life works out."

A Boston native, Yankelovich studied philosophy and psychology as an undergraduate at Harvard and planned to become a professor of philosophy. But his education was put on hold for three years while he served in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II.

"Returning to Harvard Yard after serving in Europe is one of my fondest memories," he recalls.

Back at Harvard, he pursued graduate studies in clinical psychology but found himself growing increasingly restless. He decided to take a leave of absence to study philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris. Before he left, however, he made the pivotal decision to help run a study MIT was conducting on returning veterans. The school had recognized that many war veterans were having trouble transitioning back to student life and was trying to discover the best way to help them. Yankelovich became one of the junior psychologists conducting the study.

"MIT was very responsive to our study and the results. They made many of the changes we suggested in order to better help veterans," he says. "I found this to be a very positive experience."

After the study concluded, Yankelovich left for Paris and lived there for several years. When he returned to the U.S., he wasn't sure what he would do as he had grown disillusioned with the field of philosophy. He remembered his experience with the MIT study and how that made him feel.

"I liked the idea of helping institutions become more responsive to the people they served," he says. "Market research and polling seemed to be a way that I could interpret the point of view of people and various audiences, and utilize that information to enhance an experience. I could help people."

He began working with an industrial design firm doing pre-design research and soon went on to found his first company, the market research firm Yankelovich, Skelly and White, now known as Yankelovich Partners. In addition to running and founding several companies over the years, he also found time to author 12 books as well as teach psychology and opinion research at various institutions including Harvard, New York University, The New School for Social Research, UC Irvine, Tufts Medical School and UC San Diego.

"In teaching students, I was able to take a complex subject and make it accessible to people," he says. "I really enjoyed doing that."

Although he's not currently teaching, Yankelovich has remained connected to academia. He became involved with UC San Diego after moving to La Jolla from the East Coast over a decade ago. He initially served as co-director for the UCSD Civic Collaborative, which supported the university's efforts to become involved in the community, and later joined the UC San Diego Foundation Board of Trustees. His affinity for the social sciences also led him to participate on the Dean's Advisory Council for the Division of Social Sciences as well as fund the establishment of the Yankelovich Chair in Social Thought. The endowed chair will support a senior social scientist whose work transcends traditional academic boundaries.

"No issue is confined to one department," he says. "Challenges must be approached from different points of view. And knowing how important it is to get, and keep, good faculty at UCSD it made sense to fund an endowed chair."

He continues: "I've always had a warm feeling about the community of scholars that exist at universities. Even though I was in the business world, I feel like the academic community is my community. My heart has always been with universities; I'm glad to be involved."