Mary Petrone

Dr. Mary Petrone is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Medical Sciences at the University of Sydney, affiliated with the Faculty of Medicine and Health. She completed her PhD at Yale University, focusing on the genomic epidemiology of RNA viruses, and previously contributed to HIV research at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Her research interests include RNA virus evolution, phylogenetics, and the study of marine ecosystems' viromes, particularly in cyanobacteria, corals, and tunicates. She currently works in Dr. Edward Holmes' lab to discover novel marine viruses. Dr. Petrone has advised Krispin HAJKOWICZ on clinical metagenomics for pathogen diagnosis.

Her work spans SARS-CoV-2 surveillance during the pandemic, dengue virus sequencing protocols, and viral evolution studies. She has secured grants including an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project (2024) and a Sydney Institute for Infectious Diseases Seed Grant (2023).

Key contributions include developing genomic tools for viral tracking and advancing ecological approaches to zoonotic risk assessment. Her lab focuses on integrating environmental and genomic data to understand viral emergence and transmission dynamics.