Manuela Engstler earned her Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from Stuttgart University in 2014, and a Master of Arts in American Studies from Saint Louis University in 2016. She has taught in American Studies at Saint Louis University and worked as a research assistant for the same department, as well as the Department for Literatures Languages and Cultures. Engstler received a competitive graduate assistantship from the Walter J. Ong Center for Digital Humanities for the academic year 2020/2021, and another competitive graduate assistantship from the newly established Center for Research on Global Catholicism in the academic year 2021/2022. Her research interests are Transnational Studies, Civil Rights and Black Power, and Modern European History.

 Outside of this academic work, Engstler founded the Graduate Public Humanities Group at Saint Louis University, which has been organizing public humanities events regarding the professionalization of graduate students in the public humanities field, as well as themes such as decolonizing institutions. The group is part of a larger public humanities project in conjunction with the faculty led Public Humanities Initiative, which is mapping the racial and cultural history of Saint Louis University to make it accessible to the public (sluhistorytour.org)

"Americans Abroad: Civil Rights and Freedom Struggles." During the 1960s and 1970s Americans were involved in transnational protest movements and the creation of countercultures in African and European countries. This course explores the histories of these movements, paying attention to how they worked together, inspired, and interacted with each other.  This interdisciplinary course combines traditional histories with first-hand accounts, photographs, film, pamphlets, and other political and cultural primary sources.

"The Arrival of Friedrich Hecker and the Forty-Eighters in Missouri," in German Abolitionists: Fighting for a Free Missouri (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, scheduled 2023).