Prof. Dr. Roger Martínez-Dávila is a historian specializing in Sephardic and Converso history, with a deep connection to Spain and his own family’s Jewish-Catholic heritage.
His first book, Creating Conversos: The Carvajal-Santa María Family in Early Modern Spain (2018), explores the 14th-century formation of his own family—a blend of Spanish Catholic knights and Jewish rabbinic lineages. Somos católicos, somos judíos—they are the resilient but fractured Conversos.
He co-curated Fractured Faiths: Spanish Judaism, The Inquisition, and New World Identities (2016) at the New Mexico History Museum, uncovering the Sephardic diaspora in North America.
His Deciphering Secrets project engaged 50,000 learners in transcribing medieval Spanish manuscripts on Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations.Dr. Martínez-Dávila serves on the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute’s America&Spain250 Commission, highlighting Sephardic presence in the U.S. Southwest.