Dr. Jenny O'Connor has a PhD in Film Studies and is a lecturer in English and Communications in the School of Humanities at South East Technological University. She is a member of the Analysing Social Change Research Group, currently working within the Lyrical Bodies Project, which involves students and staff from SETU's School of Humanities and the Dublin Theatre of the Deaf investigating Waterford playwright Teresa Deevy's ballet 'Possession'.

Dr. O'Connor is also a member of the Transnational Education and Community Health Collaboratory (TEACH CoLab). This is a global teaching project that connects staff and students in academia across 2 institutes - The University of Washington, and SETU Campuses in Waterford and Carlow, and examines specific and pertinent health-related issues through a cross-cultural lens.

Since 2017, Dr. O'Connor has hosted the English at SETU podcast series 'The Nerve', and produces an average of 5 episodes per semester. It has featured interviews and discussions with students and staff of SETU, as well as world-renowned authors and scholars

Dr O'Connor is a member of the Practice-Led, Active, and Creative Engagement Working Group (PLACE), which is part of the Analysing Social Change Research Group. Within this group, emerging and established researchers work across a number of different projects using a variety of methodologies to produce both performance and traditionally academic research outputs. One such project is Lyrical Bodies, which involves students and staff stom SETU's School of Humanities, and Dublin Theatre of the Deaf investigating Waterford playwright Teresa Deevy's ballet 'Possession', a work never yet performed, to explore and analyse ableism and gender discrimination towards the Irish Deaf Community and Deaf Women in theatre practice. Her role here is within a digital storytelling capacity, to document, reflect on, and communicate the experience of the academic project.

Dr. O'Connor teaches on a variety of modules in the B.A. Arts/Psychology course. These include:

• Introduction to Literary Criticism and Composition,
• Shakespeare: Drama and Film,
• Literature and Society,
• Critical Theory and Beyond,
• Literature of the Family,
• Independent Literary Study.

In addition, she also teaches on modules across a range of other courses. These include:

• Applied Computing - Module: Narrative Construction.
• Health Promotion and Public Health - Module: Communication and Media Skills.