Alfred Montoya is an associate professor of Anthropology in the Sociology & Anthropology department. His work concerns, broadly, the intersection of science, technology and society in the governance of epidemics in Southeast Asia. His dissertation focused on the history (and problematization) of HIV/AIDS in Vietnam within the context of competing regimes of politics, ethics and technology. Based on archival work and two years of fieldwork in Southeast Asia, this work tracked the emergence of HIV/AIDS in Vietnam, its casting by the state as a "social evil," and its subsequent painstaking reproblematization under the US President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief.

More recently, Dr. Montoya has taken up a related range of medical anthropological interests including work on the link between economic shifts within Asia and the illicit trade in wildlife; the intersection of human health and environmental sustainability; drugs and the drug trade in Southeast Asia; and the compounding effects of urban poverty on access to education, health services and proper nutrition. A native of San Antonio, Dr. Montoya is especially interested in forming partnerships with local agencies and the San Antonio community, developing opportunities for students to engage in community-based research projects through his fieldwork course.