Barbara Brito Rodriguez

Dr. Barbara Brito Rodriguez is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney's Faculty of Science, affiliated with The ithree institute. Her academic background includes a PhD in Epidemiology from UC Davis (2015) and a PhD in Veterinary Sciences from Universidad Nacional de Rosario (2014), alongside a Doctor in Veterinary Medicine from Universidad Mayor (2007). She holds postdoctoral appointments at Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (2016–2017) and research roles across institutions in Chile, Argentina, and the US.

Her research focuses on quantitative epidemiology, animal disease modeling, molecular epidemiology of infectious diseases, and metagenomic approaches. Key interests include antimicrobial resistance mechanisms, zoonotic pathogen surveillance, and pathogen emergence dynamics in livestock and wildlife. She has contributed to studies on influenza viruses in swine, foot-and-mouth disease dynamics in cattle, and genomic analyses of antibiotic-resistant bacteria like Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii.

Barbara has secured grants including the ARC Linkage Project on dairy calf infectome surveillance (2023–2026) and UTS-funded initiatives on viral livestock disease genomics. She collaborates internationally on projects addressing global health challenges such as H5N1 avian influenza in Chilean wildlife and SARS-CoV-2 cross-species transmission in domestic cats. Her work emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches to improve diagnostic methods and inform disease control strategies.