Dr. Galán received his PhD in History from Southern Methodist University in 2006, MA in history from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1999, and BA in Latin American Studies with a concentration in history from the University of Texas at Austin in 1990. He is a 2025-2026 Research Fellow through the Center for History & Culture for Southeast Texas and Upper Gulf Coast at Lamar University. He teaches classes on Latin America, Mexico, Texas, and Caribbean. His primary research uses Spanish archival records to examine military, political, economic, and social relations in Texas under Spain and Mexico. His book, Los Adaes: The First Capital of Spanish Texas, was published in 2020 by Texas A&M University Press, College Station, in the Summerfield G. Roberts Texas History Series. He won a 2023 book award from the San Antonio Conservation Society Foundation and the 2022 book award from the Texas Old Missions and Forts Restoration Association. He was also a Finalist for the 2021 Ramirez Family Award for Most Significant Scholarly Book from the Texas Institute of Letters. His next book project is a biography of Antonio Gil Ybarbo, a criollo (American-born) Captain, Indian Agent, Judge, Lt. Governor, who founded the Spanish town of Nacogdoches in 1779. Research interests include smuggling, kinship, and migration in the Texas-Louisiana borderlands from late colonial Mexico to the early American Southwest.