Morano subsequently attended New York University and graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts Film and TV program in 2000. She returned to NYU as an adjunct cinematography professor and co-instructed the first Advanced Television classes offered.
Morano married fellow Cinematographer and gaffer Matt Walker in 2008. They have two sons and live in Brooklyn, New York. Elder son Casey played Olivia and Luke's son in Meadowland.
In 2011, Morano was honored at the Women in Film and Television International's Crystal + Lucy awards with the 2011 Kodak Vision Award. The same year, she was named one of Variety's “10 Cinematographers to Watch”. Morano has also been featured as one of Ioncinema.com’s “American New Wave 25″ and one of five innovative cinematographers in ICG Magazine’s “Generation Next” spotlight.
Later in 2012, Morano's work was featured in IndieWire’s "On the Rise '12: 5 Cinematographers Lighting Up Screens in Recent Years." IndieWire also featured Morano as a “Heroine of Cinema” in both 2011 and 2013. In 2012, Morano was featured in Kodak’s long-running OnFilm series. The following year, she became the youngest member of the American Society of Cinematographers, and one of 14 women in an organization of approximately 345 active members.
In 2013, Kill Your Darlings, a 35mm period piece about the beat poets, set in 1943, premiered there , and screened as the Toronto International Film Festival and the Venice film festival. The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete (2013) premiered at Sundance as welll. and theatrically released;
Morano also filmed the series premiere of HBO's drama Looking in 2014. and episodes of Vinyl, produced by Martin Scorsese, Terence Winter and Mick Jagger.
In 2015, Morano was named Woman of the Year at the Fusion Film Festival.
She won a 2017 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for the Hulu series The Handmaid's Tale.
Her stepfather, realizing her interest in theater and drama, "gave me a video camera and said, 'You’re gonna be the family documentarian.' So I documented birthday parties and things. When it was time to go to college, I was going to apply to Boston University for journalism and dad said, 'Why not apply to NYU film school, because you love telling stories and taking pictures?' And I thought, 'Oh, I can do that for a job? Cool!'"
