A native Jersey girl, Megan O’Rourke was raised in Blairstown and graduated from North Warren Regional public school. The youngest of four children, her family has been in NJ for generations, since her great-grandfather immigrated from Ireland.
Megan understands what working families go through every single day because she has lived it – growing up, her family struggled financially. Her mother, who supported the family, began her career in clerical work and attended college later in life, bringing Megan with her to classes at Centenary College when she couldn’t find a sitter. Later, when Megan was pursuing her Ph.D., her family used critical federal programs like Medicaid, WIC and Head Start to make ends meet.
Despite graduating at the top of her class as a Star Ledger Scholar, there was no immediate path to college after high school. Instead, Megan found a fellowship through the local Rotary Club and earned money by sorting mail, waitressing, and other odd jobs – determined to continue her education.
She found her way to Brigham Young University, where she met her husband, also a native of New Jersey (Morris County). Megan worked her way through school, eventually earning 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 and raised three wonderful kids on less than $30,000 a year.
With her Ph.D. in hand, Megan has had a successful career. 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.
For the last five years, she led climate change science at USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) overseeing approximately $200 million in funding annually.
In 2023, she also served as a Brookings Fellow and senior advisor to Congresswoman Chellie Pingree and learned first-hand how to get things done in Congress.
This spring, Megan resigned from the Trump administration after eight years working in the federal government as a climate change expert. In her own words, “I could not in good conscience continue to work for this administration. I took an oath to uphold the Constitution when I joined federal service and unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, my time serving the public as a climate scientist has come to an end. But, I am excited to fight for New Jersey families here at home in a new way: by running for Congress.”
