Dr. Thomas W. O'Donnell is an academic, analyst and consultant on the global energy system, especially oil and gas, and international affairs. His Ph.D. is in nuclear physics from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. For 15 years he has taught primarily post-graduate seminars on energy and resources in international relations and development (especially on Mideast and Latin American OPEC states, USA, EU, and China) at the University of Michigan, Ohio State University, New School University’s Studley Graduate Program in International Affairs (NYC), Freie Universität Berlin JFK Institute (Berlin) and at the Hertie School of Governance (2016, Berlin). 

He blogs at GlobalBarrel.com and often writes for the IP Journal (Berlin), Americas Quarterly (NYC), Petroguía (Caracas) and the AICGS (Washington) and is regularly interviewed by international media. In 2015 O’Donnell was an American Institute of Contemporary Studies (AICGS) and DAAD fellow in Washington researching U.S. viewpoints on German and EU energy vulnerabilities. He spent two years (2008-09) as U.S. Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor at the Center for the Study of Development, Central University of Venezuela (CENDES/UCV), Caracas. He is Senior Analyst at Wikistrat and consults with various geopolitical, business-intelligence, and research firms. Pre-Ph.D., he spent a decade in U.S. industry including automobile manufacturing, railway operations, large-scale HVAC and power generation, and later as a radiation safety health-physics officer overseeing a research nuclear reactor and university medical and engineering research labs. In connection with his experimental nuclear physics research in the U.S. and Japan, he is author of about 40 peer-reviewed papers.