Dr. Robert O’Connor

Panel Chair

Dr. Robert O’Connor directs the Decision, Risk and Management Sciences Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Dr. O’Connor also serves on the management teams for NSF’s Coastlines and People  Program and Artificial Intelligence for Decision Making competition. Dr. O’Connor represented NSF on the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee, a federal advisory committee that prepared the National Climate Assessment. He currently serves on the Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction of the National Science and Technology Council of the Executive Office of the President. Before working at NSF, Dr. O’Connor was a professor of political science at Pennsylvania State University. The U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Science Foundation funded O’Connor’s research into public perceptions of cumulative, uncertain long-term risks such as climate change. Dr. O’Connor earned his undergraduate degree at Johns Hopkins University and his doctorate in political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.