Gina O'Connor

Who is Gina O'Connor?

Dr. Gina Colarelli O'Connor is associate professor in the Lally School of Management & Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she has taught and conducted research for more than 15 years. She has served as the Director of the Lally School’s MBA/MS programs, Associate Director of the Severino Center for Technology Entrepreneurship, and is currently the Academic Director of the Executive MBA program. Doctor O’Connor is also the Director of the Radical Innovation Research Program, ongoing at the Lally School since 1995. In that role, she recently lead a team of ten researchers across three universities in the program’s second phase, a longitudinal research study designed to understand and improve large, established companies' implementation of radical innovation capabilities. She is responsible for recruiting twenty one Fortune 1000 companies to participate in this three-year effort, which is now complete and has culminated in the publication of a book, titled Grabbing Lightning: Building a Capability for Breakthrough Innovation.

Before joining RPI in 1988, Dr. O'Connor earned her Ph.D. in Marketing and Corporate Strategy at New York University. Prior to that time, she spent several years with McDonnell Douglas Corporation in Contract Administration on the AV-8B Harrier program, and at Monsanto Chemical Corporation's Department of Social Responsibility.