Laurie L. Patton is the president of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a position she started in January 2025. Prior to the Academy, Patton served as the president of Middlebury College—the first woman to lead the institution in its 224-year history. Her leadership at Middlebury brought a signature initiative on conflict resolution, new residential learning programs, a shift toward renewable energy, and increased funding and fiscal transparency. Previously, Patton served as dean of Duke University’s Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and the Durden Professor of Religion, and as Candler Professor of Religion and Inaugural Director of the Center for Faculty Development at Emory University. She began her career at Bard College.
Patton is an authority on South Asian history, culture, and religion, and religion in the public square. She is the author or editor of ten scholarly books and three books of poems, and has translated the classical Sanskrit text, The Bhagavad Gita, with the Penguin Classics Series.
Patton earned her BA from Harvard University in 1983 and her PhD from the University of Chicago in 1991. She was president of the American Academy of Religion in 2019 and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018 in two categories, philosophy/religion and educational and academic leadership, and has been active in membership selection and democracy initiatives.