Ruben Morales Forte

Rubén Morales Forte is a Ph.D. student in Linguistic Anthropology. His dissertation, Who Speaks How?, focuses on linguistic variation in the Ch'orti' Mayan language of Eastern Guatemala, Central America. His interests include Mayan languages, Maya archaeology, Maya Epigraphy, and Community Engagement as an approach to transforming scientific knowledge. He has conducted archaeological fieldwork in the Maya Lowlands, the Maya Highlands, and the Pacific Coast of Guatemala. He has also worked with Kaqchikel, another member of the Mayan languages family, and developed a joint community project with the Regional Museum of Southeastern Petén at Dolores, Guatemala. Here, he is now conducting ethnographic work as part of the Dolores Slow Archaeology Project. He was a Mellon Fellow for Community Engagement from 2018 to 2020 and holds a Dissertation Innovation Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (2024-2025). Before enrolling in the Ph.D. in Anthropology, he earned an MA in Latin American Studies at Tulane and a Licenciatura in Archaeology from Universidad del Valle de Guatemala.