Karen O’Connor is a scientist, strategist and executive leader specialising in complex multi-disciplinary program implementation and technology adoption. She has more than 20 years’ experience driving scientific change at scale. Karen is passionate about harnessing innovation for real world benefit and has led the way in outcome-focused innovation, using her extensive experience working alongside front-line operators to accelerate adoption and operationalisation of emerging technologies. Karen holds a Ph.D. from Monash University, and an M.P.H. from the University of Melbourne.

Karen has designed and led large scale science and technology programs for Defence both in the U.S. and Australia, CSIRO (Australia’s national science agency) and the Minderoo Foundation. Most recently, Karen spearheaded the development of the Minderoo Foundation’s Fire and Flood Resilience strategy, a series of cross-cutting, outcome-focused missions designed to drive a step change in Australia’s resilience to fires and floods. As part of this, Karen led the delivery of multiple projects aimed to improve national wildfire technology capabilities in collaboration with fire agencies across Australia.