[1] O’Rourke is a geotechnical engineer and a subject-matter expert on natural disasters and their impact on the infrastructure supporting civil society.
They, for instance, study underground spaces such as parking garages, skyscraper foundations and subfloors, and they also evaluate how structures made of soil and/or rock (such as earth dams, highway embankments, and levies) behave.
[3] O’Rourke served on the National Academy of Engineering team studying Hurricane Katrina and its effect on the Gulf Coast.
The assessment concluded that the infrastructure of New York City survived the attack remarkably well, and a study team was created to determine what attributes of American engineering led to such resilience.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has consistently highlighted O’Rourke's studies of the application of soil and rock mechanics to underground and excavation technologies.
In 2009 O'Rourke delivered the 49th Rankine Lecture at Imperial College London, entitled "Geohazards & Large Geographically Distributed Systems".
Such projects include the Washington D.C. Metro System, Superconducting Super Collider, Channel Tunnel, and the Boston Central Artery.