Biography

Dr. Maryann Cusimano Love is a tenured Associate Professor of International Relations in the Politics Department of The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, a Fellow in the Institute for Policy Research, and serves in the Honors Program. She serves as a consultant to the Holy See Mission at the United Nations, where she participates in the UN negotiations for the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, and the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons. She serves on the Board of the nonpartisan Arms Control Association, is a founding board member of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network, a consultant on international affairs to the U.S. Catholic Bishops, Pope Francis’ New Technologies for Peace task force, and works on environmental protection of the Chesapeake Bay. 

Previously, she served as an Ethics Fellow at the U.S. Naval Academy, as a fellow at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, on the Department of State’s Core Group on Religion and Foreign Policy (which made recommendations to the Secretary of State on how the U.S. Government can better engage with civil society and religious actors), and on the Boards of Jesuit Refugee Services, the International Society of Political Psychology, and Women in International Security. Dr. Love founded the Political Psychology section of the American Political Science Association.

Dr. Love is a New York Times best selling author. Recent publications include her book Global Issues Beyond Sovereignty (Rowman & Littlefield 2020), God and the Bomb (forthcoming), and “Just Peace,” in Religion and Peace (Wiley Blackwell, 2023); “Holy See Diplomacy and Nuclear Weapons,” in Vatican Neutrality (Lexington Books, 2022); “Just Peace and Nuclear Weapons,” and “The Ethics of Nuclear Stewards,” in Forbidden (Georgetown University Press 2023); “Women, Religion and Peace,” in Illuminating the Unseen (US Institute of Peace); “Interreligious Peacebuilding and Fratelli Tutti,” in Interreligious Peacebuilding (Taylor and Francis, 2021); “The Papal Vision: Beyond the Bomb,” Arms Control Today, May 2020; "Christian Transnational Actors in Iraq," in Under Caesar's Sword (Cambridge University Press, 2019); “Women of Faith as Strategic Peacebuilders,” in Exiting Violence (De Grutyer 2024); “What Kind of Peace Do We Seek?” in Theology and Ethics of Peacebuilding (Orbis 2011); and her You Are My I Love You children’s book series (Penguin Putnam), published in seven languages and selected for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and Kohl Department Stores Kohl’s Cares literacy programs.

Dr. Love earned her PhD from Johns Hopkins University. She has received fellowships and grants from the Pew Foundation, the Templeton Foundation, U.S. Institute of Peace, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins University, The Ethics Center of the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the U.S. State Department, as well as three honorary doctorates from Walsh University, Georgian Court University, and Mount St. Mary’s University Los Angeles. She is a columnist for America magazine, where she won a Catholic Press Award. She works on Chesapeake Bay conservation, and serves on the Ladies of Charity food pantry. Dr. Love lives on the Chesapeake Bay outside of Washington, DC, with her husband Richard Love and their three children.