Navarro, Juan Carlos

Biologist, with a specialty in biology and ecology of insect vectors and subsequent doctorate in molecular systematics of vectors and ecoepidemiology of arboviruses (equine encephalitis), with a long academic career in research, teaching and university management. He is currently a Senior Researcher in emerging diseases-One Health and Research Director of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine-UAX. His research has been dedicated to the evolutionary and transmission mechanisms, emergence/re-emergence of arboviruses and other pathogens through micro-level studies in molecular and phylogenetic epidemiology, as well as the biodiversity and evolution of vectors and pathogens, the ecology-epidemiology of diseases from different links in the transmission chain (pathogen, vector, hosts and their ecology), as well as at a macro level in landscape epidemiology and the application of geographic information systems. (GIS) to determine critical points and possible transmission areas. His career began in Venezuela (Central University of Venezuela-UCV, Institute of Zoology and Tropical Ecology), working in tropical areas of lowland jungles of Guyana and the Amazon, savannahs and mountains of the coastal mountain ranges and the Andes. His doctorate split between the UCV and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) focused on the molecular entomology of vectors and ecoepidemiology of the Venezuelan equine encephalitis complex, carrying out field work in subtropical areas of the United States and tropical areas of Central and South America. He has been a PAHO consultant in INS-Bogotá, a visiting researcher at the Museum of Natural History in Washington (Smithsonian Institution) and at the Natural History Museum in London. He has published on equine encephalitis, West Nile virus, Dengue, Yellow Fever, Mayaro, Oropouche and Orthobunyavirus, vesicular stomatitis, SARS-Cov2, malaria, Leishmaniasis, Trypanosomosis, Taenia, taxonomy, systematics and ecology of Culicidae. In the last 12 years he has worked expanding the research focus towards different zoonoses from Ecuador (SEK International University, as Research Director and at the International Zoonoses Center-UCE as an associate researcher), maintaining the macro-to-micro approach to epidemiology. He has created and directed different research groups, laboratories in Venezuela and Ecuador, as well as departments of biological collections dedicated to emerging zoonoses with new species and new records from different regions. He has tutored dozens of undergraduate and doctoral theses, as well as on student advisory committees in different countries. He has been a collaborator, deputy director and PI with different grants funded by NIH, NASA, Fogarty, ARES and regional entities, all in arboviruses and emerging zoonoses in a one health context together with colleagues from different countries. Subject Editor at Journal of Medical Entomology, Oxford Press Associate Editor at Frontiers in Tropical Diseases (Emerging Tropical Diseases) Member of the Committee of the World Society for Virology Guest Researcher at the Medical Entomology and Arbovirus Lab and Center for Emerging Viruses and Arboviruses, UTMB, Galveston Associate Researcher at GeoBiomet, University of Cantabria. Publications: 134 (March 2026) h-index Scholar: 37 ; hi10: 86 // h-index Scopus: 24 // citations 5.086 Contributions Virus emergence in Latam and social implications. Reemergence of Arbovirus in Latam. Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis Virus ecoepidemiology. Mechanisms of emergence and contrasting foci of Venezuelan equine encephalitis. Ecology and Taxonony of Vector Borne Diseases. Genetics and phylogeograpy of vector borne diseases. Phylogenetics and molecular ecoepidemiology of Vectors and Parasites.