Manny Medrano is a PhD candidate in Latin American history at Harvard, where he examines pre-Columbian texts, artifacts, and scientific practices, and the history of their transmission, reception, and study in the Americas and worldwide. His dissertation is a five-century global history of changing ideas about Inca writing, focusing on quipus (Andean knotted-cord records).

He is the author of Quipus. Mil años de historia anudada en los Andes y su futuro digital (Planeta, 2021), and his writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society, Latin American Antiquity, Ethnohistory, and The Hispanic American Historical Review. His research has been featured by NPR, The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, The BBC, and Google Arts & Culture.

Manny holds an MPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of St Andrews, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a BA in Applied Mathematics from Harvard College, magna cum laude. He entered Harvard’s History PhD program in 2022.