Eileen O’Connor is an attorney and award-winning former journalist and government official who oversees policy, advocacy, and communications at The Rockefeller Foundation designed to build partnerships, resources and policies to address climate change, economic and global health equity and food system change. O’Connor served as Vice President at Yale for Public Affairs and oversaw the Poynter Fellowships, creating four symposia and bringing over 100 speakers and experts on the decay of truth in the internet age to campus. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia under President Obama and Senior Adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistan, O’Connor led an interagency process to counter violent extremism and foreign fighter recruitment, mostly done online through misinformation and targeted ads. This was in addition to overseeing efforts to counter Russian misinformation in former Soviet Republics in Central Asia. Prior to this work, O’Connor practiced law, founding several crisis management practices at three international firms, working on complex litigation, and investigations, including several in Russia and Ukraine. O’Connor was President of the

International Center for Journalists and Chair of the Board of the Center for Justice and Accountability, suing torturers and human rights abuses. As an award-winning journalist for 24 years early in her career, she covered Russia and the fall of communism, multiple war zones, famine, and politics in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, as well as at the White House. She advises the Dept of Homeland Security on incident response and provides commentary to several news outlets, including CNN, Fox, and the New York Times. O’Connor has a JD from Georgetown, a post-graduate diploma from the London School of Economics in World Politics, and a BSBA from Georgetown. She is married and the mother of five daughters and grandmother of two.