Deborah Williamson

Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL), Melbourne, Australia

Professor Deborah Williamson is a clinician-scientist, Director of the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory and Professor of Public Health Microbiology at the Doherty Institute, University of Melbourne. She is co-chair of the Communicable Diseases Genomics Network of Australia and an NHMRC Investigator Grant Fellow. She received a L’Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science Fellowship in 2017 and was awarded the 2020 Frank Fenner Award for research by the Australian Society for Infectious Diseases. She has published over 230 papers since 2011 and has been awarded over $35 million competitive research funding since 2016. Her translational research group at the Doherty Institute focuses on the development and application of diagnostic technologies, including genomics, to infectious diseases. Her research has directly influenced the way microbiology is applied to clinical practice and public health, including responses to antimicrobial resistance and COVID-19.