Marcelo Aranda joined NCSSM-Morganton in July 2022 as a founding faculty member and instructor in American Studies and Humanities. Born in Nicaragua, he grew up in South Florida in close proximity to space shuttles, Cold War politics, and a diverse community of people from all over Latin America. As a child, he became curious about the historical accidents, circumstances, and decisions that led him to the United States, which in turn sparked his study of history. Marcelo studied history at UC Berkeley and Stanford and has written scholarly articles about early modern scientific networks and practices in the Spanish Empire and has merged new digital methods with traditional historical instruction. He taught in the SIMILE program at Stanford University, and was then chair of the History Department at Quarry Lane School in Dublin, CA. He has also written about historical world-building in video games. His other interests include local food, graphic novels, animation, and science fiction novels. Marcelo, his wife, and his three cats, are pleased to be part of the Morganton community.   

He teaches American Studies I and II, RexHUM, RHUM and History of Science at NCSSM-Morganton

BA, History, University of California, Berkeley 

PhD, History, Stanford University

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