He was the recipient of the 2003 University of Southern Maine Faculty Award for Excellence in Scholarship and is the 2009–2010 USM Trustee Professor. He holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Studies from Tulane University. His publications include Ojer taq tzijob’�l kichin ri Kaqchikela’ Winaqi’ (A History of the Kaqchikel People) (Q’anilsa Ediciones, 2004) and Engendering Mayan History: Mayan Women as Agents and Conduits of the Past, 1875–1970 (Routledge, 2006). Though his research interests center around ethnicity, gender, and oral histories in Guatemala, he also has been exploring the connections (both historical and current) between Latin America and Maine. He recently coedited, with Robert Atkinson, Latino Voices in New England (State University of New York Press, 2009), and he has researched and written about the nineteenth-century connections between Portland and Cuba.