Prof. O’Meara received her PhD from McMaster University in 1999. She went on to work as a postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and as a Visiting Scientist at the Body Composition Laboratory at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. In September 2001, she became an Assistant Professor at McMaster University in the Medical Physics and Applied Radiation Sciences department. Prof. O’Meara joined the Department of Physics at the University of Guelph in July 2002, where she is now a full Professor. O’Meara continues to hold adjunct faculty status at McMaster University.
Prof. O’Meara’s research focuses on the design of x-ray fluorescence (XRF) systems to measure elemental body composition in vivo. In general, such measurement systems are developed for assessing exposure of industrial populations in the workplace, as the existing monitoring techniques do not provide direct information regarding levels in biologically relevant tissues/organs, tending instead to rely on the inference of worker health from measuring levels in blood and urine. Key research themes include: