Frank D. McCann is Professor of History Emeritus in the University of New Hampshire where he has been on the faculty since 1971. He received his education at Niagara University (A.B., 1960), Kent State University (M.A., 1962), Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (Fulbright, 1965), and Indiana University (Ph.D., 1967). Prior to joining the New Hampshire faculty, he taught at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls (1966-68), and, while on active military duty, at the United States Military Academy at West Point (1968-70). He was visiting research fellow at Princeton University (1970-71) and a guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington (1978). He was visiting professor at New York University (1979-80) and the University of New Mexico (1983), and Fulbright Professor at the Universidade de Brasília (1976-77) and at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (1991). In 1998 he was Visiting Professor in the Specialization Program in Frontier Studies, Universidade Federal de Roraima (Boa Vista).

He received research fellowships and grants from Indiana University (1966), Fulbright-Hays (Brazil: 1965-66, 1974, 1976-77, 1991), the National Historical Publications Commission (1970-71), the American Philosophical Society (1970, 1971, 1973, 1991), Social Science Research Council and American Council of Learned Societies (1976-77), the University of New Hampshire (14 grants), and the Heinz Endowment (1985-87).

His research has focused on Brazilian foreign affairs, on relations with the United States, Brazilian culture, and on the Brazilian army. It has resulted in four published books, with three more in various stages of completion, plus some sixty scholarly articles, critical essays, and commentaries. His Brazilian-American Alliance, 1937-45 (Princeton, 1973) received the 1974 Honorable Mention Award in the Bolton Prize competition of the Conference on Latin American History (CLAH) and the 1975 Stuart L. Bernath Prize of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. The Brazilian edition appeared in 1995: Aliança Brasil-Estados Unidos, 1937-1945 (Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca do Exército Editora). A Nação Armada (Recife, Brazil: Editora Guararapes, 1982), is a collection of essays on the history of the Brazilian army. His "Formative Period of Twentieth-Century Brazilian Army Thought, 1900-1922," Hispanic American Historical Review (Nov. 1984) won the New England Council on Latin American Studies Prize for the best article of 1984. He and Michael L. Conniff edited and contributed to Modern Brazil: Elites and Masses in Historical Perspective (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989 & 1991). His Soldiers of the Pátria: The Brazilian Army, 1889-1937 (Stanford University Press, 2004) was published in Brazil by Companhia das Letras of São Paulo, in 2007 as Soldados da Pátria: História do Exército Brasileiro, 1889-1937 and in 2009 the Biblioteca do Exército Editora (Rio) published a co-edition of the book.

In 1987, the President of Brazil conferred on him the rank of Comendador in the Order of Rio Branco, in recognition of his scholarship and of his efforts in promoting better relations between Brazil and the United States. In 1994, the Minister of the Brazilian Army conferred on him the Medalha do Pacificador in recognition of his research on the army's history.

He is a Contributing Editor (Brazil) to the Handbook on Latin American Studies, Hispanic Division, Library of Congress (2006- ). He retired from active teaching at UNH in 2007 and continues to live and write in Durham, New Hampshire.