Elenora E. Connors

Elenora (Nora) E. Connors is a law fellow at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University.  The Institute is the premier center for health law, scholarship, and policy; its mission is to provide innovative solutions to leading domestic and international health problems.  As a law fellow, Nora works on a wide range of health law and policy projects including: health reform; privacy, security, and health information technology; systems medicine; and health spending for prisoners. Nora is an integral member of the management team for an O’Neill Signature Project Legal Solutions in Health Reform, which aims to identify practical, workable solutions to legal issues that may arise in any federal health reform debate.  She is the lead author for project’s introductory paper “Project Overview and Emerging Themes”, which describes the formulation and definition of key legal issues, a comparison of federal and state roles in health reform, and a review of agency and committee jurisdiction over health. Nora conducted comprehensive legislative research and analysis of state prescribing laws and is currently drafting a report for the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services on “Privacy and Security Solutions for Interoperable Health Information Exchange.”

Prior to her fellowship, Nora was a fellow with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the Public Health Law Program and in the Office of General Counsel, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  At the CDC she researched public health legal preparedness and the legal implications of infectious disease control, and subsequently presented her research at the National Public Health Preparedness Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.   Nora also interned with the Office of Legal Counsel for the Bureau of Assisted Living, Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services.  Additionally, she provided legal counsel to state prison inmates as part of a law school criminal clinic.  She holds a J.D. and a M.P.H from the University of Wisconsin, Madison where she designed and created the first JD/MPH individualized program at the university. Before starting graduate school, Nora worked as an Associate Research Specialist in a behavioral neuroscience lab.   She holds a B.A. from Macalester College in Biology and Psychology.

Nora is interested in a variety of areas of public health and health law including health care policy and reform, mental health policy, prison reform, health disparities and the social determinants of health, the impact of the built environment on health, environmental health, public health legal preparedness, and pharmaceutical regulation.