Degrees:
Ph.D., Univ. of California, Berkeley
M.A., Univ. of California, Berkeley
A.B., Harvard Univ.
Amanda J. Guzmán is an anthropological archaeologist with a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. She specializes in museum anthropology with a focus on the history of collecting and exhibiting Puerto Rico at the intersection of intercultural representation and national identity formation.
She was a member of the 2024-2025 inaugural cohort of the Rooted + Relational research initiative around the theme of Archives, Memory, & the Present Past of Puerto Rico at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, CUNY. In 2025, she began research as a Co-PI on a three-year Higher Learning Grant in Environmental Justice Studies from the Mellon Foundation, entitled the Hartford Environmental Justice Research Partnership. In this project, she directs student co-curation of a pop-banner series in years 1 and 2 of the grant, which will circulate locally in museums, libraries, and religious settings to encourage regional dialogue around project findings, as well as a culminating physical exhibition at the Stowe Center for Literary Activism.
With a record of fellowships from the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Museum of American History, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Guzmán has a demonstrated background in handling and interpreting objects and archival materials across varied collection-holding cultural institutions. Guzmán is also the co-director of Trinity's Center for Caribbean Studies, where she established an annual newsletter and a student researcher team model, which, among other organizational tasks, has expanded the center's website content to include a research blog, photo essays, and faculty interviews.
She supports undergraduate anthropological training beyond the classroom through academic-year research assistantships and regular participation in the Summer Research Program and the Public Humanities Collaborative. Previous summer research culminated in a 2024 blog co-authored with a team of anthropology majors for the Council for Museum Anthropology entitled " Material Storytelling: Student Reflections on Object-Based Research." Future object-based learning opportunities and student research will be supported by the development of an Anthropology Object Lab, housed within a Material Culture and Museum Studies campus lab space, to be co-directed by Guzmán in collaboration with Professor Martha Risser (Classical Studies). Full Project List of Previous Student-Mentored Summer Projects -Public Humanities Collaborative Projects: 2025 From Archive to Interface: Narrating Hartford Environmental Histories.
2024 Material Histories: Object Digitization and Institutional Storytelling as Practice.
2021 Hashtag Memories: Puerto Rican Community Archiving as Collaborative Place-Making Practice.
Summer Research Program Projects:
2023 Teaching the Caribbean: Digital Scholarship as an Open Educational Resource.
2022 Of/By/For: Anthropological Models of Community Engaged Research. Guzmán applies her collections experience as well as her commitment to working with and for multiple publics to her object-based inquiry teaching practice, which privileges the co-production of knowledge through the modelling of cultural work. As a former community learning faculty fellow and advisory board member, she actively collaborates with the Center for Hartford Engagement and Research through community learning courses. Guzmán has hosted class speaker series focused on Puerto Rican and museum studies to promote student interactions with scholars and cultural workers. |