Kendra Brewer

Kendra Brewer (she/they) is a scholar whose research focuses on the arts produced in Mesoamerica through the early colonial period. Her research centers the ways sixteenth-century Nahua maps reflect cultural exchange between the different peoples living in what is now Mexico through their inclusion of both hieroglyphic and alphabetic Nahuatl writing. Brewer’s research interests include the impact of art on individual and collective experiences of identity, the relationship between Mesoamerican languages and their visual or material expressions, and issues of information preservation and transmission.

Before coming to Yale, Brewer earned a B.A. in the History of Art and Spanish from Johns Hopkins University and, in 2023, was awarded a Beinecke Scholarship from the Sperry Fund. Brewer’s research has been supported by Nahuatl-language instruction through the Instituto de Docencia e Investigaciones Etnológicas de Zacatecas, Mexico (IDIEZ) and by grants and fellowships from the U.S. Department of Education (FLAS, Summer 2025), Walters Art Museum, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, and the Austen-Stokes Ancient Americas Research Stipend at Johns Hopkins University.