Trish M. Perl

Trish M. Perl, M.D., M.Sc. serves as Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center and Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine. She holds the H. Ben and Isabelle T. Decherd Chair in Internal Medicine and maintains active leadership roles on national committees including the WHO’s COVID-19 Ad-Hoc IPC Experts Panel, CDC’s COVID Team B Advisory Committee, and NIH/NIAID Microbiology and Infectious Diseases study section.

• Medical Degree: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Residency & Fellowship: McGill University’s Royal Victoria Hospital
• Advanced Training: University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (Infectious Diseases & Clinical Epidemiology)
• Master of Science: Epidemiology and Biostatistics from McGill University

Dr. Perl’s research focuses on antimicrobial resistance mechanisms, C. difficile epidemiology, respiratory infection prevention, and healthcare-associated transmission dynamics. Her work integrates clinical epidemiology with practical infection control interventions, particularly in pandemic settings. She pioneered the Respiratory Protection Effectiveness Clinical Trial (ResPECT) investigating N95 respirator efficacy against influenza transmission among healthcare personnel.

Her publication trends reveal consistent focus on emerging pathogens, with recent work analyzing socioeconomic drivers of antimicrobial resistance, pandemic response strategies, and innovative infection control technologies. Key thematic evolution shows progression from classic healthcare epidemiology to complex systems analysis of pandemics and health disparities.

• Senior Scholar Award, Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (2020)
• H. Ben and Isabelle T. Decherd Chair in Internal Medicine

Dr. Perl directs significant NIH-funded research on infection prevention, with emphasis on pragmatic clinical trials and policy-relevant outcomes. Her grant portfolio includes multi-center studies on respiratory pathogen transmission, antimicrobial stewardship implementation, and healthcare worker protection during pandemics. She actively mentors trainees through UT Southwestern’s infectious diseases fellowship program and contributes to national guideline development.

Her laboratory and team focus on the ResPECT research network, which conducts cluster-randomized trials in healthcare settings. Current initiatives include evaluating novel disinfection systems, developing predictive models for infection outbreaks, and implementing community-based surveillance for antimicrobial-resistant pathogens.