Max J. Castro is a senior research associate at the North-South Center. His work focuses on refugees and migration in the Western Hemisphere, democratic governance, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Castro has held teaching positions at Florida International University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Appalachian State University in North Carolina.
He is the former executive director of Greater Miami United, a nonprofit corporation that worked to develop cooperative race and ethnic relations in South Florida. He served as director of the Vista Institute of Hispanic Studies, a private organization that conducted research on Hispanic issues and promoted the welfare of the Hispanic population in the United States. Castro is the author of Free Markets, Open Societies, Closed Borders? Trends in International Migration and Immigration Policy in the Americas(North-South Center Press, 1999). He is also a regular columnist for The Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald (Miami), and La Opinión (Los Angeles). Castro frequently provides expert commentary on inter-American issues for the major national television networks.