Amanda Guzmán is an anthropological archaeologist with a Ph.D. in Anthropology (Archaeology) from the University of California, Berkeley. She specializes in the field of museum anthropology with a research focus on the history of collecting and exhibiting Puerto Rico at the intersection of issues of intercultural representation and national identity formation. In the context of Puerto Rico’s current environmental and economic uncertainty, her dissertation critically traced understudied museum acquisition narratives documenting the island’s historical material relations of belonging and exclusion with the U.S. mainland.

Amanda has a demonstrated background handling and interpreting object and archival material in diverse collection-holding cultural institutions. She applies her collections experience as well as her commitment to working with and for multiple publics to her object-based inquiry teaching practice that privileges a more equitable, co-production of knowledge in the classroom through accessible engagement in cultural work. She actively participates in the service of diversifying the academy through undergraduate mentoring initiatives such as the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program.