Dr Siobhán O'Connor is a Senior Lecturer in the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care at King’s College London. She also holds an Adjunct Associate Professor role at Western University, Canada and is a Liaison to the United Nations (UN) for Sigma Nursing. She is an internationally recognised leader in digital health, with a research portfolio of more than £6.5 million, and a multidisciplinary background in nursing and information systems. She completed her PhD in health informatics and has nearly 20 years combined experience in industry, clinical practice, and higher education. Dr O'Connor also served as an external advisor on the World Health Organization (WHO) on the  WHO's State of the World's Nursing report 2025 providing recommendations on digital nursing education and practice. 

Email: [email protected]

Her research focuses on co-designing, implementing and evaluating technologies in healthcare, with a particular interest in mobile health and other digital innovations that can support patient self-management. She also leads the AI Nurses Network a global network supporting nurses to pioneer artificial intelligence (AI) techniques and tools in healthcare. 

Dr O'Connor has received more than £6.5 million in research funding for digital health research from a variety of national and international funders including the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), Medical Research Council (MRC), Innovate UK, the Burdett Trust for Nursing, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal College of Nursing, Sigma Nursing, and the US-UK Fulbright Commission. In 2018, she won a RCN Foundation Impact award for research on the history of nursing informatics in the UK, and in 2022 received an Emerging Nurse Researcher/Scholar Award from Sigma Nursing due to her active scholarship in the Phi Mu chapter in England. 

Dr O’Connor has published over 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles including empirical studies, systematic and literature reviews, discussion and editorials, and book chapters, along with numerous blogs, newspaper, and magazine articles. She supervises Masters and PhD students interested in patient focused topics in clinical informatics such as mobile health (health apps), wearable devices, telehealth or telecare, online or web-based health services (including social media), smart homes and assisted living technologies, robotics, virtual or augmented reality, and artificial intelligence.

Current research projects:

• AI Nurses Network - a global network suppoting nurses to pioneer artificial intelligence (AI) techniques and tools in healthcare, funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing. This includes a free annual conference on AI in nursing. www.ai-nurses.com
• COLLATE - Co-creating an online methods toolkit for digital health co-design, funded by the NIHR (NIHR206172). www.digitalhealthcodesign.co.uk 
• NIHR Development and Skills Enhancement Award conducting a realist review and realist evaluation of participatory methods to tailor implementation strategies for digital diabetes interventions (NIHR305124). 
• King's Health Partners Digital Health Hub - an accessible national multidisciplinary resource supporting the training, co-creation, translation and the acceleration of digital health technologies funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). www.kingshealthpartners.org/our-work/digital-health-and-data-sciences/digital-health-hub
• OpenPREGnosis: Developing an Open Algorithm to Identify Pregnancy Episodes and Outcomes in National Electronic Health Records (NIHR206877). 
• COST Action called AI-Governance, Use and Impact for a Dynamic European R&I Ecosystem (AI-GUIDE, CA25157).
• NIHR Undergraduate Internship Programme mentoring a final year student at King's College London in digital health research  (NIHR305950).

Teaching: 

• Digital health technologies for self-management and self-care (November and December each year, fully online and blended, postgraduate / CPD, 15 credits)
• Artificial intelligence for health and care (April and May each year, fully online and blended, postgraduate / CPD, 15 credits)

Current PhD students:

• Student: N. Alsubhi, Topic: Prompt engineering skills for using generative AI among undergraduate nursing students in Oman: a mixed methods feasibility study, Funding: Government scholarship
• Student: W. Zhu, Topic: Inclusive total-communication co-design technologies, Funding: EPSRC DRIVE-Health PhD Scholarship 2025
• Student: I. M. Rahajeng, Topic: Designing a course curriculum to support education in and evaluation of nursing informatics competencies in Indonesia, Funding: Government scholarship
• Student: A. Permana, Topic: Exploring virtual journal clubs to educate critical care nurses in Indonesia about evidence based practice, Funding: Government scholarship
• Student: Y. Dong, Topic: Using social media to help emergency nurses in China continue their professional development, Funding: King's-China Scholarship Council PhD Scholarship programme 2023
• Student: H. Pertiwi, Topic: Co-design and pilot of a digital educational intervention to increase disaster preparedness in Indonesia, Funding: Government scholarship
• Student: T. Arslan, Topic: Developing a falls prediction model and digital falls dashboard for community dwelling older adults: a mixed methods feasibility study, Funding: MRC Doctoral Training Partnership scholarship