Michael J. Montoya holds faculty appointments in the departments of Anthropology & Chicano/Latino Studies, in the School of Social Sciences, The Program in Public Health and the Program in Nursing Science in the College of Health Sciences, and is faculty for The Program in Medical Education for the Latin Community (PRIME-LC), in the School of Medicine at the University of California -Irvine.  Additionally, Montoya serves as the Director of Research for the Community Engagement Unit of the Institute for Clinical Translational Science in the School of Medicine at UC-Irvine.

Montoya is interested in exploring the boundaries of biomedical and social sciences in order to find a critically integrated approach to solving health disparities among Chicano/Latino communities. This emerging research agenda has been funded by the NIH National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and entails joining with like-minded collaborators from the life and social sciences as well as others with stakes in health outcomes and social equality. By dividing the labor between research into the lived conditions of bodies in certain contexts and research into the pathophysiological and biological impact of those life conditions, Montoya hopes to demonstrate that a unified approach to health research offers better conceptual and predictive possibilities than conventional disciplinary research alone.