Dr. O’Keefe was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and grew up in Omaha. She earned her MD degree from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, College of Medicine and completed a Masters of Public Health degree in Epidemiology from Emory University, Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta, Georgia.  She completed a Transitional Internship at Emory University School of Medicine and a Preventive Medicine Residency at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, Colorado. Dr. O’Keefe is board certified in Public Health and General Preventive Medicine (https://www.theabpm.org/become-certified/specialties/public-health-general-preventive-medicine/).

Prior to starting on the faculty in the School of Medicine, Dr. O'Keefe was the Senior Epidemiologist for the Douglas County Health Department (DCHD) in Omaha from 2006 to 2022. Her role at the health department included assisting with the responses to outbreaks, small, large, and pandemic; communicating and coordinating with physicians, other healthcare providers, and the public; mentoring epidemiology and public health students as well as fellow staff professionals; and other activities that helped the department fulfill it's mission. Prior to that role, she served as the bioterrorism preparedness epidemiologist for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. Before that she was an epidemiologist studying young worker safety at the National Instutue of Occupational Safety and Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Her work has focused on public health informatics, disease surveillance, public health data management and analysis, bioterrorism response, occupational safety, nutritional epidemiology, and drug safety research.