Rate My Professor Javier Monzon

Javier Monzón serves as Associate Professor of Biology in the Natural Science Division of Seaver College at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. His office is located in RAC 125. He joined Pepperdine as Assistant Professor of Biology in 2015 after completing a National Institutes of Health IRACDA Postdoctoral Fellowship at Stony Brook University’s Center for Infectious Diseases and Department of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology from 2013 to 2015. Monzón earned his PhD in Ecology and Evolution from Stony Brook University in 2012, with a dissertation titled “Rapid Evolution of Northeastern Coyotes” advised by Daniel Dykhuizen and Roland Kays. He holds a BA in Biology (cum laude), with a minor in Psychology, from Queens College, City University of New York, awarded in 2004.

The research in the Monzón Laboratory focuses on the ecology, behavior, and evolution of animals living on the edge of their geographic ranges, including genetic and behavioral differences arising in populations expanding into urban areas or new habitats. Ongoing projects examine urban and non-urban coyotes in Southern California and medically relevant ticks such as the Lone Star tick. In 2023, Monzón secured a $428,341 National Institutes of Health grant to investigate how genomic and microbial diversity within ticks modulates vector-borne disease prevalence, involving specimen collection in Oklahoma and New York, next-generation sequencing, and collaboration with Assistant Professor Leah Stiemsma. His peer-reviewed publications include “Urban coyotes are genetically distinct from coyotes in natural habitats” (Journal of Urban Ecology, 2020, with A. Adducci et al.), “Population and Evolutionary Genomics of Amblyomma americanum, an expanding arthropod disease vector” (Genome Biology and Evolution, 2016, with E.G. Atkinson et al.), “Assessment of coyote–wolf–dog admixture using ancestry-informative diagnostic SNPs” (Molecular Ecology, 2014, with R. Kays and D.E. Dykhuizen), “Hypercholesterolemia and ApoE deficiency result in severe infection with Lyme disease and relapsing-fever Borrelia” (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015, with A. Toledo et al.), and “Climate change and species range dynamics in protected areas” (BioScience, 2011, with L. Moyer-Horner and M.B. Palamar). Earlier grants include the Pepperdine University Dean’s Research Grant ($1,500, 2016) and American Society of Mammalogists Grants-in-Aid of Research ($1,500, 2010). Monzón teaches courses including Ecology, Zoology, Animal Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, and Animal Ecology and Conservation. He has given invited presentations such as “Tick talk: Evolutionary genomics of a rapidly expanding disease vector” at Queens College (2015) and serves on the Advisory Board of the Northeast Wolf Coalition. Monzón has co-authored numerous papers with undergraduate students and mentored them in research presentations at conferences like Evolution 2013 and the American Society of Mammalogists.