I'm Marlon, a historian with dual specialties in military history and Latin American history. My research interests include collective memory studies, war and society, and political identity in 20th century Colombia. I recently defended my dissertation, "Battlefields of the Mind: Memory and Civil War in Colombia, 1900–1950," and will receive my PhD in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in August 2026.

My research traces how Colombians remembered and mythologized the Thousand Days' War (1899–1902), and how that contested memory shaped the country's descent into La Violencia decades later. I've conducted archival research at Colombia's Archivo General de la Nación and the Biblioteca Nacional, supported by the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship. My work has been published in The Latin Americanist, Age of Revolutions, the North American Congress on Latin America, and the Journal of Military History.

As a teacher, I bring history to life through historical simulations, primary source analysis, and "live documentary"-style lecturing—methods I've used teaching Global History of Warfare, Guerrillas and Counterinsurgencies in Latin America, and War and American Society at UNC, where I received the History Department's Outstanding Teaching Award. I acquired additional pedagogical training as a fellow at the Society for Military History's 2024 Summer Seminar.

Beyond the classroom and archive, I co-organize the Colombian Studies Group's annual conference and engage in public history with the municipal government of Lebrija, Santander, Colombia.

I'm currently on the academic job market for positions in Latin American history, military history, and world history at the college and university levels, and developing my dissertation into a book manuscript.