While at KU, O’Hara participated in NASA’s KC-135 Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program, the NASA Academy at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and the internship program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
O'Hara as a KU student participated in the Engineering School's Engineering Expo. “We built a Space Shuttle simulator one year — a whole mock-up of the inside of a shuttle for kids to try landing the shuttle," she said.