Louis Marano

Born into an Italian-American family in Buffalo, New York, Louis Marano graduated from Canisius College in 1966 and served two tours in Vietnam with the US Navy Seabees.

Marano earned an MS and an MA from SUNY-Buffalo and lived with the Ojibwa Indians of Canada from 1974 to 1979. He received a PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of Florida in 1981.

After two years as an assistant professor at Drake University, Marano spent twenty-two years in the news business in Washington, DC, including ten years at The Washington Post. From 2000 to 2005 he was a reporter, columnist, and feature writer for United Press International.

As a civilian contractor for the US Army in Iraq, Marano was a field anthropologist on a Human Terrain Team in 2007-2008 and in 2009 taught at the Army’s counterinsurgency school outside Baghdad. He has three children and four grandchildren.