His career has included pharmacy practice in a variety of settings, as well as teaching, research, publications, and consultations in pharmacology, pharmacy, and nutrition to industry, government, health care, publishing and legal fields.

He is Associate Professor of Pharmacology at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, where he served as the Course Director for the Medical Pharmacology program. He also held Faculty appointments at the University of Illinois Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy.

Dr. O’Donnell is a Diplomate of the American Board of Clinical Pharmacology, a fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology, a fellow of the American College of Nutrition, Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Pharmacy Practice, and Editor of Drug Injury: Liability, Analysis, and Prevention, First Edition (2001), Second Edition (2005), Third Edition (2012), and Co-editor of O’Donnell’s Drug Injury Fourth Edition (2016);  a Co-Editor Pharmacy Law: Litigating Pharmaceutical Cases (1995), and The Process of New Drug Discovery and Development, Second Edition (CRC Press 2005), and co-editor of Drug Discovery and Development Third Edition (2019).

He consults and testifies in matters involving pharmaceuticals, medication errors, nutritionals, dietary supplements, alcohol and recreational drug toxicity, and drug injuries throughout the United States, for defense and plaintiffs’ counsel. Dr. O’Donnell received a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from the University of Illinois, a Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Michigan, and a Master of Science in Clinical Nutrition from Rush University.