Drew Gilpin Faust

28th president, Harvard University

Drew Gilpin Faust took office as Harvard’s 28th president on July 1, 2007. Faust, a historian of the Civil War and the American South, is also the Lincoln Professor of History in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Previously she had served as founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, a post she took up on Jan. 1, 2001. As the first dean of the Radcliffe Institute, Faust guided the transformation of Radcliffe from a college into a wide-ranging institute for advanced study. Under her leadership, Radcliffe emerged as one of the nation’s foremost centers of scholarly and creative enterprise, distinctive for its multidisciplinary focus and the exploration of new knowledge at the crossroads of traditional fields. In recognition of its roots in Radcliffe College, the Institute maintains a special commitment to the study of women, gender, and society. To support its mission, Faust directed a comprehensive administrative restructuring, secured the Institute’s finances, attracted major new gifts, and undertook an extensive renovation of Radcliffe’s historic campus. Radcliffe’s flagship fellowship program became a prized opportunity for established and emerging scholars throughout the academic world. She is the author of six books, including *Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War* (, for which she won the Francis Parkman Prize in 1997. Her most recent book, *This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War* looks at the impact of the Civil War’s enormous death toll on the lives of 19th century Americans. It was nominated for a National Book Award, and named by *The New York Times* one of the “10 Best Books of 2008.”