Mark W. Lentz is a historian of Latin America who specializes in colonial Mexico and Central America (with a focus on the Maya of Yucatan, Guatemala, and Belize), legal history, and the history of the Atlantic World. His current interests include the role of interpreters and translation in the conquest and colonization of Yucatan, interethnic relations in colonial and early independence Mexico and Guatemala, and grassroots resistance to royal reforms of colonial administration in eighteenth-century Latin America. He recently published articles on indigenous-African relations in eighteenth-century Guatemala and Belize and the role of Jesuits in translation, conversion, and pedagogy in colonial Yucatan. He recently served as program coordinator for the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies (2015). He received his Ph.D. from Tulane University.