Amanda is originally from Mexico City and has a Ph.D. in Media Studies from the University of Colorado Boulder. She holds a Master's Degree in Public Diplomacy from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and a Bachelor's Degree in International Relations from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.

She has served as President of the Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars as well as Editor of the Public Diplomacy Magazine, both housed at USC. She was a Research Fellow at the Center for Media, Religion, and Culture at the University of Colorado Boulder where she focused on religious diplomacy from the Vatican, Tibet, and Pentecostal groups in Brazil. In the corporate sector, she worked as a Research Analyst at the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands, where she developed proposals for public policy and cooperation to increase academic exchanges between the United States and Mexico. Her interest in entertainment-education led her to collaborate as a Researcher at the Norman Lear Center and t Wise Entertainment, analyzing the representation of minorities on television and streaming services.
Currently, her field of specialization is cultural diplomacy and digital media, working on topics like the use of video games and virtual reality as tools for cultural diplomacy. As a NACDI member, she is interested in applying a decolonial perspective to cultural diplomacy by highlighting the possibilities digital technology offers to create new, and strengthen already existing, networks of dissent that challenge the current Euro-centric approach. She has presented her research results at various national and international conferences and has several publications on public diplomacy. She has taught courses in Public Diplomacy, Public Relations, Storytelling, and Information Sciences.