Dr. Olbrecht was born and raised in New Jersey but spent part of her childhood in Switzerland. She attended Cornell University where she studied Biology and Spanish. She graduated from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2007 and completed her residency in Anesthesiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. She joined the faculty at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in 2012 after finishing her pediatric anesthesia fellowship at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She received her MBA from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 2015.

At Cincinnati Children’s, she was an Associate Professor in Anesthesiology and Pediatrics and the Director of Quality Improvement and Accreditation for Procedural Sedation for the institution. She was also the Associate Director of Research and the Clinical Director of the Procedure Center. She joined Nationwide Children’s Hospital in 2021 and spent two years as the Vice Chair of Quality Improvement and Development and the Director of Fetal Anesthesiology. She is currently the Chair for the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware Valley. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Society for Pediatric Sedation (SPS) as well as on the Executive Committee and is the Chair of the Quality and Safety Committee.

Dr. Olbrecht’s research interest lies in improving pediatric pain with innovative, non-pharmacologic therapies. She began her current research in the use of biofeedback-based virtual reality for pain management in 2018. Since 2018, she has received over $1.1 million in funding both for her research and device development and she currently has an R34 from the NIH to develop a clinical trial protocol for the integration of biofeedback-based virtual reality in perioperative pain management. She looks forward to the day when VR becomes part of everyday pain management.    

Outside of work, Dr. Olbrecht enjoys spending time with her family, including her husband and 5-year-old daughter, Marcella. She is an avid equestrian and enjoys English riding and jumping. She also loves to travel and explore new parts of the world.