Peter Palese is a United States microbiologist and professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and an expert in the field of RNA viruses. Palese is the author of multiple book chapters and more than 400 scientific publications. He is on the editorial board for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). He has been awarded multiple patents on viral vaccines and antivirals.