Nicholas DeMaria Harney is a Professor of Social Anthropology whose research focuses on urban life, migration, mobility, and belonging across Italy, Canada, and Australia^. His multi-sited ethnographic work examines how mobile populations navigate precarity, informal economies, and state governance in global cities. Harney has held major competitive national research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Australian Research Council (ARC). He is the author of Eh, Paesan!: Being Italian in Toronto (University of Toronto Press), co-editor of The Lucky Immigrant: The Public Life of Fortunato Rao, and author of numerous journal articles and book chapters across anthropology, sociology, and migration studies.

An experienced academic administrator and globally engaged educator who has taught on four continents, Harney served as Dean of the Faculty of Social Science at Western University from 2021 to 2026^. Prior to this, he was Head of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology at the University of Windsor, and served as Associate Dean (International) in the Faculty of Arts and Chair of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Western Australia. Since 2012, he has been a Visiting Professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Research at the Università degli Studi di Trento.

Harney received his A.B. magna cum laude in Social Anthropology from Harvard University and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Social/Cultural Anthropology from the University of Toronto^. He completed postdoctoral studies and served as Director of the Mariano A. Elia Chair in Italian Canadian Studies at York University.