John Frederick Schwaller
John Frederick Schwaller is an American historian of Latin America, specializing in colonial Mexico, religion, and indigenous peoples. He has written monographs on religion in Mexico, edited scholarly editions of important colonial Mexican texts, and has coordinated and edited anthologies of articles on religion. His administrative service includes being President of State University of New York at Potsdam from 2006-2013 and Director of the Academy of American Franciscan History, 1993-95. He is currently professor of history at University of Albany, State University of New York. Education and career. Schwaller was born and brought up in  Hays, Kansas, but he spent considerable time in Mexico as a youth, travelling with his parents. He attended Grinnell College, graduating with a B.A. in History. He attended graduate school in Spanish at University of Kansas, in Lawrence, earning an M.A. in Spanish, and went on to Indiana University in Bloomington, earning a doctorate in History. As a graduate student he spent two years doing research in Mexico and Spain, supported by fellowships. He taught at Florida Atlantic University from 1979–93, with a joint appointment in History and Languages & Linguistics. He went on to serve as an administrator and faculty  member at University of Montana, and University of Minnesota, Morris, and in 2006 became President of SUNY Potsdam. In 2013, he stepped down from administration and returned to full-time teaching at SUNY Albany. He has been active in promoting connections between scholars through the H-Net listservs for Latin America (H-LATAM) and Nahuatl (H-Nahuatl). He serves on the editorial boards of "The Americas" and "Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl".