Staff Bio
Patricia Orr
Director of Policy, Planning & Budget
Patricia Orr coordinates the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution's Program Evaluation System. This system is designed to test implicit assumptions underlying Environmental Conflict Resolution (ECR) theory which, over time, should result in improving performance of collaborative ECR approaches. Prior to joining the Institute, Patricia worked on a contract basis with the Santa Cruz Institute, a non-profit international training organization based in Tucson. She came to the Institute in May 2002, having just completed a training effort that involved preparing and coordinating an integrated water management workshop sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Patricia Orr obtained both her Bachelors and Master's degrees in Agriculture and Resource Economics at the University of Arizona, the latter in December 2001. While completing these degrees, Patricia worked in both administrative and research capacities with the Office of Arid Lands Studies and the Department of Agricultural and Resources Economics. At the Office of Arid Lands Studies she provided administrative and data processing support on several environmental projects, including one full year in Malawi (southeastern Africa) where she helped administer USAID-sponsored Public Lands Utilization Study. At the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics Patricia worked on the University of Arizona's Water Sustainability Initiative funded by President Peter Likins. This was an outreach project aimed to help inform the general public on the challenges of sustainable water management in the Tucson basin. For her Master's thesis, Patricia worked on an Environmental Protection Agency-funded riparian area management project. One component of this interdisciplinary research initiative focused on placing an economic value on the riparian resources of the internationally renowned Upper San Pedro River Basin in southeastern Arizona. Patricia was directly responsible for the design, data collection and capture, and analysis of this database of information involving 800 respondents.
Patricia Orr, (520) 901-8548 orr@ecr.gov