Molly O’Rourke is an Executive in Residence in the School of Communication where she also serves as Director of the Master of Arts (MA) program in Political Communication and as a Senior Advisor to the Sine Institute of Policy & Politics. She has more than 25 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 advocacy organizations, political candidates and parties, and media outlets, including environmental and women's health coalitions and NBC News. Earlier in her career, Molly worked in the U.S. Senate, 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.

Molly currently serves as Chair of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) which oversees all human subject research at AU. She is a member of the Brown Alumni Association Board of Governors.