Mercedes de Guardiola is a New York-based innovation and strategy consultant and historian. A Communications Manager at Luminary Labs, de Guardiola supports open innovation programs that have focused on reducing Veteran suicide, transforming workforce training opportunities with pre-apprenticeships, accelerating the development of Lyme disease diagnostics for active infection, spurring the development of artificial kidneys, developing accessible tools for scientific discovery, and advancing resilient infrastructure to measure Earth’s magnetic field for GPS.

Her work on the history of eugenics is currently focused on Vermont, including public policies of child health and welfare, mass institutionalization and later deinstitutionalization, sterilization, and family separation. A leading expert on Vermont's eugenics movement, de Guardiola testified before the state legislature during hearings in the early 2020s on the 2021 apology and ongoing responses. Get in touch for speaker and press inquiries and order “Vermont for the Vermonters”: The History of Eugenics in the Green Mountain State from the Vermont Historical Society and Amazon.

A member of the New York Junior League, a women-powered volunteer organization, de Guardiola is dedicated to improving the health and welfare of New York families. During her tenure, she has overseen the non-profit’s large-scale restoration and on-demand volunteer programs and chaired the Playground Improvement Project, leading the restoration of St. Nicholas Park (2021) and Seward Park and surrounding green spaces (2022). The NYJL honored Mercedes as a 2020 Woman to Watch for exemplary service to the League and the New York City community.

De Guardiola earned her B.A. from Dartmouth College with a double major in History and Art History, receiving the Jones History Prize for her thesis on the history of eugenics in Vermont and the Adelbert Ames Fine Arts Award for achievement in Art History.