A former journalist for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), she began lecturing at the School of Journalism at the Central American University in Managua, Nicaragua, before returning to Australia to teach at University of Technology Sydney, receiving a Team Teaching Award for creating new dialogues about race, power, subjectivity, and intercultural communication.
[3] O'Donnell's interest in Central American culture and media started when she made a documentary on the 1985 International Peace March from Panama to Mexico, broadcast on the ABC.
Death Dreams & Dancing in Nicaragua,[4] is a travel memoir which also provides a case study to demonstrate the importance of radio education for impoverished communities.
In 2012 she became Chief Investigator on the ARC-funded New Beats Project, which involved seven journalism academics from five Australian universities.
[13][14][15] A second round of ARC funding allowed the research to expand internationally and New Beats II included collaborators such as Professor Mark Deuze in the Netherlands, as well as academics in Canada, Indonesia, South Africa, and USA.