Dr. J. Michael Francis received his PhD in History in 1998 from the University of Cambridge. Between 1997‐2012, Dr. Francis taught at the University of North Florida, where he also served briefly as Chair of the Department of History. His teaching fields include colonial Latin America, Early Florida, Spanish Borderlands, the Pre‐Columbian Americas, and Spanish Paleography.

Dr. Francis has published numerous articles on the history of early‐colonial New Granada (modern day Colombia). His book, Invading Colombia, was published in 2008 by Penn State University Press. Dr. Francis’ most recent book, entitled Murder and Martyrdom in Spanish Florida: Don Juan and the Guale Uprising of 1597, was published in 2011 by the American Museum of Natural History. His next book project, The Martyrs of Florida, is under contract with the University Press of Florida.

Dr. Francis’s many grants and honors include UNF awards for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching, Outstanding Graduate Teaching, and Outstanding International Leadership. He has received a Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society and an Alfred J. Beveridge Research Grant from the American Historical Association. In 2007, Dr. Francis was granted a four‐year appointment as Research Fellow at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and in 2010‐2011, Dr. Francis was named the Jay I. Kislak Fellow at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

Since 2008, Dr. Francis has represented UNF on the editorial board for the University Press of Florida. He continues to serve as Book Review Editor for the joural Ethnohistory, and in 2011, US Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, appointed Dr. Francis to serve on the St. Augustine 450th Commemoration Commission.