Jill Kathryn Ker Conway

Jill Ker Conway was a historian, writer, college professor, and college president, and served as head of the Society’s Council, first as president and then as the chair, from 1987 to 1993. 

She was the first woman president of Smith College (1975–85), after which she was visiting scholar for many years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Conway authored several books on the historical experience of American women. In 1976 she was named a Woman of the Year by Time magazine, and she received the National Humanities Medal in 2013. In 1989 she published her best-known book, The Road from Coorain, a widely acclaimed autobiography detailing her young life in New South Wales, Australia.