O’Rourke joined Boston College’s Political Science department in autumn 2014. Her research interests include international relations theory, U.S. foreign policy, international security, and military strategy. She is currently completing a book manuscript on the causes, conduct, and consequences of U.S.-orchestrated covert regime changes during the Cold War, as well as a series of related articles on the impact of regime change on interstate relations.

Before joining the faculty at Boston College, O’Rourke was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College and a pre-doctoral fellow at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University. She has a Ph.D. in Political Science and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Chicago.