About Me

Hey there. I’m Lisa.

Most people know me as an academic publication consultant and writing coach. What you may not know about me is that over the years since earning my PhD in Latin American history but working as an entrepreneur outside official academic spaces, I've struggled with getting my own ideas out into the world. I used to think that academic publication wasn't for people like me. I spent way too many years feeling like my scholarship wasn’t good enough for publication. Even though I've always felt like a writer, I quit writing because of fear and shame about and persistent questions about who the hell was I to even try to get published.

What I've learned is that spending years paralyzed wondering if my ideas or writing were good enough for publication wasn't actually helping me get my writing projects out the door and into the world and did nothing to help me feel like the productive writer I wanted to be.

But I still had some things I wanted to say and ideas I wanted to get out into the world. So, mustering no small amount of moxie, I started to follow my own unique intellectual passions and write and publish as often as I could. I’ve grown a lot as a scholar, writer, and person.

Here’s why I do what I do. Because too many underrepresented scholars are struggling against structural inequalities in academic spaces, their vitally important intellectual work goes unpublished and unrecognized. I teach them to transform their ideas into powerful and publishable scholarship to change the way we think about the world around us to help us solve the most urgent challenges of our time.

True confessions…

My best selfie!!

I never finished high school. I don’t have a GED either, which somehow did not prevent me from earning a PhD. (Don’t tell anyone. And please never ask me to do math.)

I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala from 2004-2006 and I have STORIES. It was both a life-changing and complicated experience and I’m still thinking about what it all means.

I am always awestruck by awesome alliteration, apparently!

I make my own roads. I’ve moonlighted as a PhD student, a medical receptionist, a veterinary technician, a disaster mental health team member, a victim advocate, a study abroad director, and am currently the master of my own destiny with my own business (since 2017!).

A formerly stray cat has recently adopted me. We’re learning about each other and working on building a trusting relationship.

You’ll find me glued to the news about the Colorado river, adoption politics, museum collection repatriations, and all things Guatemala.

I currently live in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico. I’ve been here since 2018 and I’m not sure if I’ll ever live stateside again.

Aquí se habla español. I sometimes dream in Spanish. I feel like I have it in me to learn one more language and I’m now trying to learn French.

My retirement plan is to start a company that takes people trekking in the Colorado mountains with pack goats. I have a long spiel about why goats are an important part of the future of outdoor recreation. I’m happy to talk to you about this AT LENGTH. You’ve been warned.

Scholarship and Research

Selected publications

Munro, Lisa L. Article under peer review. 2023.

Munro, Lisa L. Book review: Cold War Paradise: Settlement, Culture, and Identity-Making Among U.S. Americans in Costa Rica, 1945–1980. Journal of American Ethnic History 42 (4), 125-127.

Munro, Lisa L. “Come and See Guatemala at Macy’s! Indigenous Aesthetics and Informal Empire on Display in the Heart of the American Home.” Journal of Cultural Economy 15, no. 2 (September 21, 2021): 184–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2021.1977677.

Munro, Lisa. “Crafting the Secrets of the Ancient Maya: Media Representations of Archaeological Exploration and the Cultural Politics of US Informal Empire in 1920s Yucatan.” Bulletin of the History of Archaeology 31, no. 1 (May 10, 2021): 3. https://doi.org/10.5334/bha-652.

"Finding Footholds, Finding Your Way," in Succeeding Outside the Academy: Career Paths Beyond the Humanities, Social Sciences, and STEM, edited by Kelly J. Baker and Joe Fruscione University of Kansas Press, October 2018.

Munro, Lisa. “Buried Secrets, Living Children: Secrecy, Shame, and Sealed Adoption Records.” Nursing Clio (blog), October 10, 2017. https://nursingclio.org/2017/10/10/buried-secrets-living-children-secrecy-shame-and-sealed-adoption-records/.

Media Kit

  • US-Latin American cultural relationships with emphasis on Mesoamerica, Guatemala, early 20th century to present

  • Adoption politics and history

  • Neoliberalism

  • Academic writing

  • Study abroad and non-traditional learning

  • Transitioning from academia to entrepreneurship

Areas of Expertise

Media Appearances

Contact

Bio

Lisa L Munro, PhD is an independent historian and entrepreneur. Her academic scholarship focuses on cultural relationships between the United States and Mesoamerica in the early twentieth century. Her personal advocacy centers of creating greater truth and transparency in child adoption practice.

She is the owner and founder of Lisa L Munro, LLC, a small business dedicated to helping academic novice and underrepresented scholars develop their ideas into publishable scholarship. Since 2017, the business has offered writing retreats, 1:1 writing coaching, academic editing, and journal article writing workshops for graduate students and faculty in the social sciences and humanities.

  • Interviewed by Cassie Werber of Quartz for a podcast and article about world’s fair history, May 2023. Click here to read and listen.

  • Guest speaker talk at Horizons by Hopkins 2022 conference (November 16, 2022), about career transitions out of academia. Johns Hopkins University.

  • Podcast interview; PhD Life Raft with Emma Brodzinski, “Avoiding Fear and Shame while Writing Your PhD,” November 15, 2021.

  • Podcast interview; The Agile Academic with Rebecca Pope-Ruark, “Episode 1.5,” March 4, 2021.

  • Keynote address at Beyond Academia conference, “The Opportunity of Crisis,” University of California, Berkeley (March 1, 2019).