Jill Ker Conway was born in Hillston, New South Wales, graduated from the University of Sydney in 1958, and received her PhD from Havard University in 1969. From 1964 to 1975 she taught at the University of Toronto and was Vice President there before serving in 1975 and fro the next ten years as President of Smith College. Since 1985 she has been Visiting Scholar and Professor in MIT's Programme in Science, Technology and Society, and now lives with her husband in Milton, Massachusetts.