Molly O’Rourke, Executive in Residence, School of Communication, American University

Molly O’Rourke is an Executive in Residence in the School of Communication where she also serves as director of the MA program in Political Communication. She has more than 15 years’ experience in the field of public opinion research, most recently as a partner at Hart Research in Washington, DC. She has directed multiphase qualitative and quantitative research for a variety of issue advocacy and nonprofit organizations, trade associations, political candidates and parties, and media outlets. Earlier in her career, O’Rourke worked on Capitol Hill, for EMILY’s List, the women’s political action committee, and as an analyst at the Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute. For several years, she co-wrote a monthly column about trends in public opinion and political behavior titled “Behind the Numbers” for The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper. O’Rourke currently serves on the Institutional Review Board (IRB) which oversees human subject research and she is a member of the board of governors of the Brown University Alumni Association.