Rate My Professor Daniel O’Connor

Daniel P. O’Connor, Ph.D. serves as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Houston and as professor in the Department of Health and Human Performance. He oversees 14 academic departments, nine academic areas and programs, 13 academic centers, six clinical service units, and more than 688 faculty members, supporting over 12,000 students in the largest college at the university. O’Connor earned a bachelor’s degree in human performance and health sciences from Rice University, a master’s degree in physical therapy from Texas Woman’s University, and a doctorate in kinesiology from the University of Houston.

He joined the University of Houston faculty in a part-time capacity in 2003 and full-time in 2007. His prior appointments at the institution include department chair of Health and Human Performance, associate dean for faculty and research in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, interim dean of the college from 2020 to 2021, and president of the UH Faculty Senate in 2018. He is also a fellow of the Helping Everyone Achieve a Lifetime of Health Research Institute. As a researcher, O’Connor has secured or participated in approximately $17 million in externally funded awards from agencies including the NIH, CDC, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Education. His work focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of health-related interventions, explaining variation in health outcomes, and examining the effects of physical activity on health and risk factors, with collaborations across fields such as obesity, public health, kinesiology, rehabilitation, and surgery. He authored the book Clinical Pathology for Athletic Trainers: Recognizing Systemic Disease, 3rd edition, published in 2015, and received the UH Faculty Award for Excellence in Research, Scholarship or Creative Activity in 2014.