Dr. Mack D. Mariani

• 513-508-6849
• 710 Walter Schott Hall
• Fax: 513-745-2074
• ML STT-121

Mack Mariani, a Buffalo native, is the 2008 and 2018 chicken wing eating champion of Xavier University.  He earned his BA at Canisius College (1991) and his MA and PHD at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University (1992, 2006). 

Mariani is the Executive Director of the Stephen S. Smith Center at Xavier.  He also directs Xavier's American Founding and Constitution programs, which receive support from the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America's Founding Principles. He serves as an Honored Visiting Graduate Faculty member in the Masters in American History and Government program at the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University.  Mariani is the Xavier liaison for the Washington Center for Internships, and coordinator of the political science department's local internship program.  Mariani previously served as chair of the political science department and was Founding Director of the Gene Beaupre State Politics Internship Program.  

Professor Mariani's teaching and research interests include campaigns and elections, congress and the legislative process, women and politics, and political internships/experiential learning. Mariani is co-author of Diverging Parties (Westview Press, 2003) and co-editor of The Insider's Guide to Political Internships (Westview Press, 2002). His research has appeared in Political Research Quarterly, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Political Science Quarterly, PS: Political Science and Politics, Politics and Gender, The Journal of Women, Politics, and Policy, Representation, the International Political Science Review, the Journal of Irish Studies, the Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, Comparative State Politics and Terrorism and Political Violence.  His most recent article, "Money Matters: The Impact of Gender Quotas on Campaign Spending for Women Candidates," (with Fiona Buckley, UCC Cork) appears in The International Political Science Review. 

Mariani has mentored summer research students in the Summers of 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 on a number of projects, including research on the gender gap in US elections, party behavior in Ireland, gender and political violence in Ireland, and the impact of institutional changes on descriptive representation and legislative careers in the Ohio General Assembly.