Rolena Adorno is Reuben Post Halleck Professor of Spanish and chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University. She is the author or editor of several books in the field of colonial Spanish American writing, among them her coauthored, award-winning "Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca: His Account, His Life, and the Expedition of PAnfilo de NarvAez," She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and lives in Hamden, CT.