Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez

Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez is a Professor of History at Texas State University’s Department of History. He holds a licenciatura in History from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and MA and PhD degrees in Anthropology from UCLA. His research focuses on Indigenous histories of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, Comanche studies, captivity narratives, and colonial ethnohistory. He collaborates closely with the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma and has conducted archival research across Mexico, Spain, the U.S., and France.

His academic awards include the Western History Association’s Ray Allen Billington Prize (2024) and the American Society for Ethnohistory’s Robert F. Heizer Award (2024). Rivaya-Martínez has authored numerous articles and edited volumes, including Indigenous Borderlands: Native Agency, Resilience, and Power in the Americas (2023).

His current projects include a book manuscript titled Comanche Captivity. He teaches graduate courses in ethnohistory, borderlands history, and historiography, as well as undergraduate courses on American Indian history and Spanish Borderlands studies.

Rivaya-Martínez has secured grants from institutions like the Wenner-Gren Foundation, CONACyT, and the Spanish Ministry of Science. His research emphasizes multidisciplinary approaches, blending archival evidence with ethnographic and linguistic data.