Research
Association between prenatal alcohol exposure and child socio-emotional development
Appointments
- Director, UCLA Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Clinic
- Professor, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
- Program Director, ABC Child Partial Outpatient Program
- Training Director, Tarjan Center for Developmental Disabilities
Biography
Dr. O’Connor’s current work examines psychosocial and psychiatric risk due to prenatal alcohol exposure. Dr. O’Connor has conducted research on the prevention of alcohol consumption in pregnant women, intervention with children with prenatal alcohol exposure, and medical and allied health education on prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
All of her work has focused on collaborative national initiatives with the long-term goal of developing best practice models to be disseminated on local, state, and national levels.
The overarching emphasis of Dr. O’Connor’s research career has been the development, evaluation, and dissemination of empirically supported assessment and treatment methods for high-risk children.
Publications
- Pedretti, F, Abdalfttah, M, Pellegrino, B, Mateo, F, Martínez-Sanz, P, Herencia-Ropero, A et al.. Harnessing STING Signaling and Natural Killer Cells overcomes PARP Inhibitor Resistance in Homologous Recombination Deficient Breast Cancer. Cancer Res. 2025; :. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-24-2531. PubMed PMID:40067927 .
- Lanham, K, Melnick, BA, O'Connor, MJ, Bartler, A, Fuentes, RJC, Ho, KC et al.. Efficacy and Patient Satisfaction in Voice Feminization Procedures: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2025; :. doi: 10.1002/ohn.1173. PubMed PMID:39963873 .
- O'Connor, MJ, Hardi, J, Martínez-Romero, M, Somasundaram, S, Honick, B, Fisher, SA et al.. Ensuring Adherence to Standards in Experiment-Related Metadata Entered Via Spreadsheets. Sci Data. 2025;12 (1):265. doi: 10.1038/s41597-025-04589-6. PubMed PMID:39952970 PubMed Central PMC11828951.
- Melnick, BA, Abu-Romman, A, Fine, KS, Barron-Cervantes, NM, Duckworth, ED, Chnari, E et al.. Decellularized Adipose Matrix for Soft Tissue Regeneration: Enhancing Angiogenesis and Adipogenesis. Tissue Eng Part B Rev. 2025; :. doi: 10.1089/ten.teb.2024.0321. PubMed PMID:39914819 .
- Hayes, EA, Koehl, D, Cantor, R, Fisher, LA, Azeka, E, Mokshagundam, D et al.. Long-Term Survival in Children Following Heart Transplantation. Pediatr Transplant. 2025;29 (2):e70042. doi: 10.1111/petr.70042. PubMed PMID:39895595 .