Saad Nagi was born in 1925 in the village of Samalig, Egypt in the heart of the Nile Delta. His father was the village mayor. He was educated in primary and secondary schools in Shibin El Kom, Tala, Tanta and Cairo. His early college years were spent at Cairo University, majoring in agriculture and horticulture. Before emigrating to the U.S., he worked for the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture and started a small business. He came to the U.S. on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1953. After studying at the University of Missouri, he earned a doctorate in Sociology from Ohio State University in 1957. He remained at Ohio State as a faculty member for the next 33 1/2 years, devoting himself to work related to disability, child maltreatment and ethnic nationalism/social movements, among other interests. During that time, he held multiple appointments in the Departments of Sociology (serving as chair from 1982 to 1989) and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and as Mershon Professor of Sociology and Public Policy (1970-1990). Upon retiring in 1990, he accepted a position as director of the Social Research Center at the American University in Cairo. He served in that position from 1990 to 1995, during which time he was the principal investigator of the first large national study on poverty in Egypt. After returning to the U.S. in 1995, he remained active, continuing to write, publish and travel until very recently. He resided in Dublin, Ohio for 52 years with Kay, his wife of 59 years. They have three grown children, four grandchildren and scores of deer who live in their yard.
