Rate My Professor Lauren Petrullo

Lauren Petrullo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at The University of Arizona, a position she has held since fall 2023. She earned her PhD in Anthropological Sciences from Stony Brook University between 2015 and 2020, an MA in Biological Anthropology from New York University from 2013 to 2015, and a BA in Biological Anthropology from New York University from 2008 to 2012. Prior to joining the University of Arizona, Petrullo served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan from 2020 to 2023, supported by a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology under the Rules of Life program. During her doctoral studies, she received the AGEP-T Frame Fellowship and the Dr. W. Burghardt Turner Fellowship from Stony Brook University.

Petrullo's research examines how mammals respond to environmental instability, integrating proximate mechanisms involving hormones and the microbiome with evolutionary explanations drawn from anthropology, evolutionary biology, ecology, and psychology. Her lab focuses on three main themes: eco-physiology, maternal effects on developmental variation, and the evolution of phenotypic plasticity, studying both captive and wild mammals such as red squirrels and ground squirrels. Notable publications include 'Phenotype–environment mismatch errors enhance lifetime fitness in wild red squirrels' in Science (2023), 'A future food boom rescues the negative effects of early-life adversity on adult lifespan in a small mammal' in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2024), 'Social Microbial Transmission in a Solitary Mammal' in Ecology Letters (2025), 'Indirect Environmental Effects on the Gut-Brain Axis in a Wild Mammal' in Molecular Ecology (2025), and 'Harbingers of change: Towards a mechanistic understanding of anticipatory plasticity in animal systems' in Functional Ecology (2025). Recent achievements include securing a five-year NIH R35 MIRA grant to investigate gut microbiome-brain interactions in wild rodents and contributing to long-term projects like the Kluane Red Squirrel Project.