Timothy P. O’Connor
Executive Vice President
Timothy O’Connor was appointed executive vice president of The Rockefeller University in February 2016. In this role, he oversees most university operations, including research support, technology transfer, facilities, and information technology, as well as finance, investments, human resources, and legal affairs. Working in partnership with the other executive officers, he provides administrative leadership to the university and represents the president both internally and externally.
Dr. O’Connor joined the university in 2013 as chief of staff and vice president, offering high-level support to the president while overseeing the university’s day-to-day operations as well as its long-term initiatives, including the ongoing construction of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation-David Rockefeller River Campus.
Dr. O’Connor’s career has focused on both biomedical research and academic administration. A native of Los Angeles, he majored in biology at the University of California, Berkeley; earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan; and worked as a postdoc in Jared Diamond’s laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1998, he set up his own lab at the City College of New York, and later moved to Weill Cornell Medical College, where he was appointed associate research professor and vice chair in the Department of Genetic Medicine.
In 2009, Dr. O’Connor moved to Yale University, where he served as associate provost for science and technology. There, he helped administer financial resources and scientific support services for researchers working in diverse areas, including biosciences, physics, chemistry, engineering, astronomy, and computer sciences, among others.
Dr. O’Connor serves on the board of several not-for-profit organizations, including the New York Structural Biology Center, the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, NewYorkBIO, and the Friends of the East River Esplanade.