Javier Monzón, a faculty member at Pepperdine University, studies the genetics of urban coyotes. He  spent part of his sabbatical in 2022-2023 in Ben Sacks' lab at UC Davis, where he applied DNA metabarcoding and next-generation sequencing to study differences in diet between coyotes that live in areas adjacent to cities vs. wildlands. During his sabbatical, he also spoke in the Ecology and Evolution seminar series about involving undergraduates in the research on the ecology of ticks.