Thomas Petersen, born on 9 September 1968 in Hamburg, is a German communication scientist and opinion researcher. He has worked at the Allensbach opinion research institute since 1993, where he is currently project manager. Petersen was President of the international professional association World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) in 2009/2010. Together with Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, he is the author of the book "Everyone, Not Everyone", a standard work for academic teaching and the practice of survey research. Petersen regularly took on teaching assignments at the universities of Krems an der Donau and Mainz.