Michael O’Rourke is Professor of Philosophy and faculty in Neuroscience and Environmental Science at the University of Idaho. His research interests include the nature of epistemic integration and communication in collaborative, cross-disciplinary research and the nature of linguistic communication between intelligent agents. He is PI on the NSF-funded project, “Improving Communication in Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration” (NSF SES-0823058), which combines information science, sociology, and philosophy in an effort to develop mechanisms that enable collaborators to achieve mutual understanding about research assumptions. He has published extensively on the topic of communication within philosophy, interdisciplinary theory, and robotic agent design.

Since 2004, he has been a collaborator and co-PI on several funded projects involving autonomous underwater vehicles. O’Rourke has had substantial administrative experience, including work at the departmental and college level. Since 1998, he has served as co-director of the Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference, an interdisciplinary conference on philosophical themes held annually on the campuses of UI and WSU, and since 2000, as co-editor of the Topics in Contemporary Philosophy series published by the MIT Press.