Dr. Monica Hurtado-Ruiz holds a PhD in Agricultural Engineering and her current research interests focus on the development of biotechnological tools for their application in biological control of agricultural important pests. Her professional career has always been linked to research and teaching. Her doctoral thesis, relating to the application of molecular markers in fruit crops breeding, was carried out at the Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias (IVIA) and was defended in 1999 at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain). She completed her doctoral work with a stay at the University of Clemson, South Carolina (USA). She achieved a Postdoctoral position at the CID-CSIC in Barcelona (Spain) and did a stay at the INRA of Montpellier (France). Since 2001, she joined the Universitat Jaume I de Castello (UJI) (Spain). She has participated in 17 research projects (main researcher in 6 of them) as well as 1 UJI-INRA research contract. Nowadays, her research is focused on citrus agro-system, especially in Tetranychus urticae, their trophic interactions and population dynamics. Related with the risk assessment of important crop pest, she also develops molecular taxonomy for detecting, identifying and tracing the origin of invasive species. Most recently, her research lines are related with plant-arthropod-microbiome interactions, using next generation sequencing for endosymbiont metagenomics determinations and differential gene expression using RNAseq.

Since 2010 until 2018, she has been part of the management team of the Agri-Food Engineering and Rural Environment Degree Program at the UJI, responsible for the coordination of professors and study subjects, the academic organization and the maintenance of high-quality work in all levels, guaranteeing the adequate acquisition of competence for the students. She devotes part of her time to train new agricultural engineers (graduates), teachers (master) and researchers (master and PhD) at the UJI. She has produced more than 30 publications in scientific journals and books and presented in many conferences.