Hal joined DRCLAS in September 2009 as the coordinator of the Center's
Mexico and Central America Program.  He holds bachelor's and doctoral
degrees in Latin American history from Harvard.  His research has
focused on twentieth-century Mexican political history, including the
impact of World War II and the Cold War on the course of the country's
development.  A former resident of Adams House, where he is currently
a non-resident tutor, Hal received a Certificate in Latin American
Studies from DRCLAS as an undergraduate, and he was a graduate student
associate of the Center in 2005-2006.  Outside of Cambridge, Hal has
served as a speechwriter for Nobel laureate Oscar Arias at the Arias
Foundation for Peace and Human Progress in San José, Costa Rica, and
he has worked as a historian in the Office of the Historian of the
U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C.