Michael O'Rourke is a Professor in Pratt Institute's Department of Digital Arts. He is the senior member of the faculty there, having been hired in 1987 to help begin the graduate M.F.A. degree program. He developed and pilot-taught many of the early courses in the program, including all the animation courses. His current focus is digital imaging and sculpture, with much of it including interactive imagery and sound. He teaches courses in all the areas of his expertise.

His artwork has been exhibited internationally, including such venues as: the Hong Gah Museum (Taipei, Taiwan), the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Wash., D.C.), the Tibor de Nagy Gallery (NY, NY), and many others.

Prof. O'Rourke has also written extensively on many aspects of computer art and animation. (Click here for a list of publications.) He is the author of Principles of Three-Dimensional Computer Animation (W.W. Norton, 2003,1998,1995). He is also the author of Michael O'Rourke's Maya 3D Tutorials, an online set of over 200 command-by-command tutorials for the Maya software package. In the 1990s, he authored a number of articles on the uses of computer technology for the design and fabrication of sculpture. He has used these techniques both for his own sculpture and for several series of works for the artist, Frank Stella.

Prof. O'Rourke has lectured widely and internationally on computer art and computer animation, with invited lectures at such venues as: Yale University, New York University, numerous universities in Korea and Taiwan, several international animation festivals, the ISEA Conference (Rotterdam, Holland), the Museum of Modern Art of Tampere (Finland), SIGGRAPH conferences, and many others.

Prof. O'Rourke's first teaching experience was as a Peace Corps volunteer in Birkina-Faso, French West Africa. He later completed an Ed.M. degree at Harvard University, and taught Kindergarten and first grade for five years at the Shipley School, outside of Philadelphia. He has also taught conversational French for the U.S. Peace Corps.