Dr Robert O’Connor appointed as Executive Director of CAUL

It is with great pleasure that we introduce Rob O’Connor (@catachretical on Twitter) as the incoming Executive Director of CAUL. Rob will begin in February 2019, but in the mean time we asked Rob to introduce himself to our community - you can read his short biography here.

Rob O’Connor undertook his undergraduate studies at the University of Western Australia and postgraduate studies at the Australian National University. Since completing his doctorate in 1999 he has worked in a variety of policy and advocacy roles in the higher education sector and in government. Most recently, he was responsible for developing, implementing and managing the successful ‘Women in STEM and Entrepreneurship’ initiatives in partnership with a number of higher education, research and not-for-profit organisations.

In his policy career Rob has been a passionate advocate for open access to publications and data, for libraries as critical teaching and research infrastructure, and for scholarly communication across disciplines and sectors. He brings to CAUL not only knowledge of and experience with Australian policy frameworks and practices but an extensive network of relationships across government, the research and higher education sectors, and with peak bodies. 

Rob drinks less coffee than he used to, does more crosswords than he needs to, and firmly believes he will be able to make a dent in the stacks of unread books at home once he stops buying new ones.