Bakhireva received her medical degree from Omsk State Medical Academy in Russia in 1999, her MPH from Boston University in 2001 and her PhD from the University of California, San Diego, in 2007.
Bakhireva's primary research interests are in the areas of substance abuse, maternal and child health, and pharmacoepidemiology. She leads several multi-disciplinary clinical studies involving substance-using pregnant women and children affected by prenatal alcohol and substance abuse. She is a Principal Investigator on the NIH-funded (R01) longitudinal study to identify early indices of functional brain damage resulting from prenatal alcohol exposure. Bakhireva's research portfolio also includes studies examining the safety of medications during pregnancy, the effect of environmental exposures on adverse perinatal outcomes, and the effect of pharmacists-led interventions to reduce mortality associated with opioid overdose.