A historian specializing in Franciscan-indigenous partnership in the development of local Christianity in sixteenth-century Mexico, Gutiérrez holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Nonfiction and a doctoral degree in Colonial Mexican History. She has lectured widely in the U.S. and Mexico, has led faculty development tours to Mexico, and has published in English and Spanish. Dr. Gutiérrez is also the Founder and Director of the Great Books Program en español at Angelicum Academy in Los Angeles.