Michael O’Hare
Professor of Public Policy
Areas of Expertise
Arts Policy
Quantitative Methods
Environment
Public Management
Biography
Trained at Harvard as an architect and engineer, Michael O’Hare came to Berkeley after teaching positions at MIT and Harvard’s Kennedy School and “real-world” employment at Arthur D. Little, Inc., Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. His research history has included periods of attention to biofuels and global warming policy, environmental policy generally, arts and cultural policy, public management, and higher education pedagogy. O’Hare is the principal investigator for Berkeley’s contract research for the California Air Resources Board for implementation of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, and publishes regularly on fuel policies for global warming reduction, especially biofuels,; their “indirect land use change” and food price effects, and the importance of time and uncertainty in relating fuel carbon intensity to warming policy.
He has been editor of the Curriculum and Case Notes section of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, is currently an associate editor of the Journal of Public Affairs Education, and has published frequently on quality assurance and best practices in professional teaching. Since coming to Cal he has done applied research for state and nonprofit clients on diverse topics including funding of the state Fish and Game Department, surface mining reclamation, and revitalizing county fairs. He is a regular faculty member of the school’s executive programs for mid-career training, and has had visiting positions at Università Bocconi, the National University of Singapore, and Université Paul Cézanne (Aix-Marseille).
He is the GSPP chair of the school’s undergraduate minor and usually teaches one of the two semester offerings of the undergraduate introduction to policy analysis. His other courses recently cycle among arts and cultural policy, a program and policy design studio, a second-year elective for masters students at GSPP and ERG on optimization and risk models, and an APA section.
