Kathleen O'Connor

Kathleen O’Connor is an authority on negotiation, conflict management, and collaboration. She has studied the impact of teams at the bargaining table, how stress influences negotiators’ choice of tactics, and how reputations for toughness undermine negotiators. Her recent research investigates how men’s and women’s facial features—their attractiveness as well as the masculinity/femininity of their facial features—influence how other people treat them. Her current project centers on women’s career paths to understand how women navigate moments of decision. In particular, she is investigating the roles of fear, courage and serendipity in women’s working lives. Kathleen O’Connor’s research has been honored by awards from leading academic organizations, including the Academy of Management and the International Association for Conflict Management and has been cited in a number of news outlets, including the Financial Times, Associated Press, and the Wall Street Journal.

Kathleen O’Connor received a B.S. from Cornell University, and an A.M. and Ph.D. in social and organizational psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has held faculty and visiting faculty appointments at Rice University and the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.