Zuñiga Loreto, Ana Laura

Ana Laura Zuñiga Loreto (she/her/hers) is a Ph.D. student in history at Columbia University. She works at the intersection of legal history and history of science to analyze how Indigenous knowledge systems and legal frameworks from the Americas intersected with European legal structures. Her research examines Indigenous conceptions of legal evidence and proof in the Americas during the early modern period. Her dissertation explores how Indigenous communities under the jurisdiction of the Spanish Empire, particularly in central Mexico, materially constituted legality through the crafting of visual documentation, the use of Native materials, and the utilization of Nahuatl.

She received her B.Sc. in Physics from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and her M.A. in International History from Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE). Her master’s thesis won the Francisco Javier Clavijero Prize for Best Master’s Thesis in History and Ethnohistory from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). She also received an honorable mention for the 2025 Society for the History of Discoveries (SHD) Student Prize.

At Columbia, Ana has served as a teaching assistant and worked as a GSAS Fellow in Academic Administration with GSAS Compass during the 2024-2025 Academic Year. She was also a co-organizer of Tlaltepactli. Archive and Research Lab with support from Columbia’s Center for Science and Society.