A founder of the field of women's history in the 1970s, Lois Banner is Professor of History Emerita at the University of Southern California. Banner graduated from UCLA, with a Master's Degree in European History and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in American history. Along with Mary Hartman, she founded the Berkshire Conference in Women's History, the biennial conference that has been held ever since and that is considered the major event in the field. She was the first woman president of the American Studies Association, and in 2006 she won the Bode-Pearson prize of the American Studies Association for Lifetime Achievement in the field. Professor Banner is also a past president of the Pacific Coast Branch, American Historical Association, and of the Coordinating Committee in Women's History of the American Historical Association. She has also been a fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, of the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard College, and of the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.