Conner grew up in California, and completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Colorado in Boulder followed by a PhD in social psychology at Boston College, with a thesis titled Experience-sampling procedures are they probes to autonoetic awareness?.
She is an expert in ambulatory assessment, using smartphone survey techniques to measure daily life and natural behaviour.
[4] She works on subjective wellbeing, and has published on research that showed how to identify people more likely to vape, allowing targeting of health messaging, the effects of kiwifruit consumption, sleep, exercise and diet on mood and wellbeing.
[5][6][7][8] She co-edited the Handbook of Research Methods for Studying Daily Life, with Matthias Mehl, published in 2012 by Guilford Press.
[9] As of 2024 Conner is a member of the Economics and Human and Behavioural Sciences panel for assessing Marsden grant proposals, and she is an associate editor for the journal Emotion.