Mageo was born in 1947. She received her B.A. at the
State University of New York, Stony Brook, in 1970 and her doctoral degree, in psychological anthropology, at the
University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1979. Her dissertation was titled "The image and the soul. An Anthropological Critique of Jung’s Psychology." She subsequently worked at multiple institutions including
American Samoa Community College, the
University of California at Los Angeles,
University College London, and the
University of Hawaiʻi. In 1993, she joined Washington State University as an assistant professor and was then promoted by professor in 2003. == Selected publications ==