Professor Manning lives in Newton, Massachusetts with her husband Gerry Manning, who is a professor at Rutgers University. Professor Manning has two daughters, Innessa and Becky. Becky is an aspiring guitarist and vegetarian. She hopes to be an actress as well as a writer. Her older sister, Innessa, works abroad for a large financial institution. Professor Manning did her Masters and Doctoral work at Columbia University in New York City. She is originally from the Republic of Texas. She is currently working on a project with fifty-three Soviet specialists and archivists on a project entitled "Tragedy in the Soviet Village".