Mary-Frances O'Connor

Mary-Frances O'Connor is an American psychologist who is a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, where she directs the Grief, Loss, and Social Stress (GLASS) Lab.

Early life and education O'Connor was born in 1973 in Boulder, CO, USA. After graduating from Northwestern University, she attended graduate school at the University of Arizona earning a PhD in Clinical Psychology in 2004. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at UCLA, and held a faculty appointment at UCLA. She returned to the University of Arizona in 2012.

Career O'Connor conducted the first fMRI neuroimaging study of bereavement, published in 2003. As a neuroscientist, O'Connor takes the approach that "grieving can be thought of as a form of learning." Learning is required to update the brain's prediction that the loved one will always be there, to the reality that they are truly gone, or the gone-but-also-everlasting hypothesis developed by O'Connor.

O'Connor believes that a clinical science approach toward the experience and physiology of grief can improve psychological treatment. Her research focuses on the neurobiological grief response to loss with function neuroimaging, cognitive tasks, and clinical interviews.

O'Connor contributes to work demonstrating that bereavement is a health disparity.

In 2020, she organized a multidisciplinary research group called the Neurobiology of Grief International Network (NOGIN). Under her leadership, the group has held four international conferences, with initial support provided by the National Institute on Aging.

Honors and awards Mentored Research Scientist Career Development Award (K01), National Institute of Mental Health, 2007-2012 Fellow, Association for Psychological Science, 2019 NPR SciFri Book Club Pick Next Big Idea Club's "Top 21 Psychology Books of 2022" Behavioral Scientists Notable Books of 2022

Books O'Connor's book The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss was published in 2022 and has received praise from peers and literary critics.