Professor O’Rourke is the Thomas R. Briggs Professor of Engineering in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has received several awards from professional societies, including the Collingwood, Huber Research, C. Martin Duke Lifeline Earthquake Engineering, Stephen D. Bechtel Pipeline Engineering, and Ralph B. Peck Awards from American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the Hogentogler Award from American Society for Testing and Materials, Trevithick Prize from the British Institution of Civil Engineers, the Japan Gas and Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) Awards for outstanding papers, and Distinguished Service Award from the University of Illinois College of Engineering. He served as President of EERI and as a member of the US National Science Foundation Engineering Advisory Committee. He serves on the National Academies Committee for New Orleans Regional Hurricane Protection Projects, which provides oversight for engineering and reconstruction of the New Orleans hurricane protection system.  He has authored or co-authored over 300 technical publications. He has served as chair or member of the consulting boards of many large underground construction projects, as well as the peer reviews for projects associated with highway, rapid transit, water supply, and energy distribution systems. His research interests cover geotechnical engineering, earthquake engineering, underground construction technologies, engineering for large, geographically distributed systems, and geographic information technologies and database management.