Dr O'Donnell holds a Doctorate in Communication from the University of Southern California. He has been associated with the photographs of Father Browne ever since his 1985 discovery, twenty-five years after the photographer's death, of the 42,000 neatly dated and captioned negatives in a much travelled trunk. Having arranged the preservation of the Browne Collection, Dr O'Donnell has edited a number of showcase volumes of the photographs. Since publication of these, Father Browne's reputation as photographer has received a major boost. One commentator states that he is 'one of the greatest photographers of the first half of this century'; another describes him as 'the Irish Cartier-Bresson'.