Alison O’Brien is Executive Vice President of Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, a strategic communications agency.  She is also the Senior Communications Counselor for Craig J. Mundie (Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer), and the agency’s Communications Strategist on Microsoft Research and the Technology Policy Group.  O’Brien has been working with advanced technology groups at Microsoft for nearly 20 years.  She worked with Microsoft’s previous Technology Officer, Nathan Myhrvold, when he founded Microsoft Research in 1991.  In the early 90’s she worked with Mundie in Microsoft’s Advanced Technology Group.  In the mid-90’s and early 2000’s, O’Brien worked on high profile corporate stories and led product launches for Windows and Office before returning to the advanced technology and policy space.  Prior to her work with Microsoft, O’Brien was the Account Supervisor on the agency’s Dell Computer and Advanced Microsoft Devices accounts.  Before joining Waggener Edstrom in 1989, O’Brien worked on consumer accounts, including DeBeers Consolidated Mines for NW Ayer, a New York advertising and public relations firm.