Manuel Lucena Giraldo is a Historian. Researcher at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas de España (CSIC), associate professor at the Instituto de Empresa/IE University and OBS-Planeta Universidades. He was visiting professor at Harvard University, Lecturer BOSP at Stanford University and researcher and visiting professor at Tufts University (Boston), Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Colombia), IVIC (Venezuela), Universidad de los Andes (Chile and Colombia), Colegio de México and St. Antony's College of Oxford University.
He has been education attaché at the Spanish Embassy in Colombia and has held higher education management positions. He was CSIC representative at the European Science Foundation, manager of COST networks and research project advisor at the Carolina Foundation.
He is a member of the editorial boards of Culture & History and Revista de Occidente. He is a member of the advisory board of National Geographic on global history. He is a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of History of Spain, the Colombian Academy of History and the Academia Europaea.
His publications have dealt with travellers, scientific expeditions, cities, national images, empires and globalisation. He is co-author of the Oxford Illustrated History of the World and a lecturer in non-fiction at the Penguin Random House Writing School.