Megan O’Rourke was raised in Blairstown, New Jersey. She earned degrees at Stony Brook University, Iowa State University, and Cornell University – along the way to earning a Ph.D., she started a small farm business with her husband. As a federal civil servant, she worked to improve food security and combat climate change at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
As a tenured professor, she studied how to make agriculture more sustainable to lower costs for families and protect our environment for future generations. She led climate change science at USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) overseeing approximately $200 million in funding annually.
Megan resigned from the Trump administration after eight years working in the federal government as a climate change expert, to pursue a bid for Congress in 2026.