David Mora-Marin is a linguistic anthropologist who specializes in historical linguistics and writing systems. He focuses on the study of the contemporary and ancient indigenous languages of Mexico and Central America. His goal is to utilize linguistic data to better understand the history of their speakers (e.g. migrations, contacts with speakers of other languages, social and political changes, economic development), as well as the nature of language itself (i.e. how languages are structured and why they change). Mora-Marin studies three of the thirteen or so Mesoamerican scripts: Olmec, Epi-Olmec and Mayan. He has also carried out field projects in Oaxaca and Yucatan (Mexico) to document contemporary indigenous languages.