Dr. Rod O'Connor

Rod O’Connor grew up on the family ‘wheat and sheep’ farm in Victoria, Australia. At the age of seventeen, he left his studies and hitch-hiked around Australia, working as a builders laborer, deckhand, fencer, truck driver, and yard-man. Then he worked a tuna boat from Darwin to Singapore, and did much the same overseas.

Several years later, in his early twenties, Rod resumed study. He completed a PhD in experimental cognitive psychology (Monash University) and later received instruction in health economics (University of Melbourne), health outcomes measurement (Harvard School of Public Health), and modern measurement methods (the University of Illinois at Chicago). Until recently he was Conjoint Associate Professor at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales (U.N.S.W.), and member of Brain Sciences U.N.S.W.

While trained in universities, Rod’s career has focused on tackling problems as they present in the messy, complex world of everyday life, completing over ninety projects in the research, development and evaluation of health and human services. His expertise has been recognized as a technical adviser to the World Bank, consultant in outcomes research for the World Health Organization, rapporteur in quality of life measurement for the U.K. Economic & Social Research Council, and invited referee for the U.K. National Coordinating Center for Research Capacity Development. He has worked or studied in Australia, India, the USA, Malaysia, Fiji, New Guinea, Colombia, and P.R.China.

Rod now works in areas where problems may benefit from cognitive skills and broad experience. In 2004 he wrote ‘Measuring Quality of Life in Health’ (published by Elsevier Churchill Livingstone U.K.), and in 2020 ‘Einstein’s Last Message.’