Dr. Weyrich obtained a PhD from The Penn State University in 2012, and moved to Australia to lead a The Ancient Metagenomics Research Group at the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide in 2012.  In 2015, Dr. Weyrich obtained a prestigious Australian Research Council DECRA fellowship, aimed at reconstructing the diversity of human microbiota around the world, especially in Indigenous people. During her career, she helped establish calcified dental plaque (calculus) as the only fossil record of human microbiota in existence, and was the first person to reconstruct the microbiome of an extinct hominid.