Nutrition and Health Program Lead
Dr. O’Connor is a nutrition scientist and epidemiologist whose research has focused on how ultra-processed foods, red meat, and dietary patterns affect obesity-related chronic diseases. A methodologist at heart, she has expertise in the design and conduct of randomized controlled feeding trials, dietary assessment, national nutrition surveillance and US dietary databases, as well as systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
She is on the Board of Editors for the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, is a statistical reviewer for JAMA Network Open, is a nominated member of the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society and served as a peer-reviewer for the Scientific Report of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. She is also an active member of the American Society for Nutrition, serving as chair of the Climate/Environment, Health, Agriculture and Improved Nutrition (CHAIN) Research Interest Group and the Awards Chair and Mentorship Program lead for ASN’s Early Career Membership.
She previously was a Principal Investigator at the USDA’s Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center where she also contributed to the systematic reviews for the Dietary Reference Intakes for fat and carbohydrates. She was a Cancer Prevention Research Fellow and Research Affiliate at the NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) where she served on the Data Analysis Team for the 2020-25 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and worked on advancements for NCI’s Automated Self-Administered 24-Hour (ASA24®) Dietary Assessment Tool.
Contact
Email: lauren.oconnor@ag.tamu.edu