Bio
Dr. Judith Mansilla is an Associate Teaching Professor and the Department of History’s faculty adviser. In addition to helping students select courses and complete their history major or minor, Dr. Mansilla advises them on internships, career opportunities, and preparation for graduate school. She is also affiliated faculty with FIU’s Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center and Center for Women and Gender Studies.Professor Mansilla’s research focuses on colonial Latin America, particularly the Andean region and the Spanish Monarchy, and brings together political, social, economic, environmental, and legal history. Her forthcoming book, Foundations of Spanish Rule: Rebuilding Lima after the Earthquake of 1687, will be published by the University of Alabama Press in 2027. Her research on colonial Lima and earthquakes has also appeared in the Oxford Bibliographies in Latin American Studies, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, and several academic journals and edited volumes.
Her current research shifts from reconstructing Lima after the natural event to the everyday workings of royal administration. Through the activities of royal officials and their social and legal networks, she examines how Lima’s royal treasury was managed in the late seventeenth century, including mismanagement, fraud, crime, and efforts to control abuses within the royal administration. Her research has received support from institutions including the American Council of Learned Societies, the Harvard University Joint Center for History and Economics, and the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs, among others. Most recently, she received the François Chevalier Short-Term Residency Fellowship from the Madrid Institute for Advanced Study, Casa de Velázquez, and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
Professor Mansilla teaches undergraduate courses on Latin American and early modern history, including The Formation of Latin America, Latin American Civilization, Abuse of Power in Colonial Latin America, Piracy in the Spanish Monarchy, and The Spanish Pacific, as well as historical methods and capstone research seminars. Her teaching invites students to understand Latin American history within broader political, social, and global contexts and emphasizes the analysis of historical evidence and the construction of historical arguments.