Drew Gilpin Faust is a well-known American historian who served as the 28th president of Harvard University from 2007 to 2018. She completed her undergraduate degree in history from Bryn Mawr College in 1968 and pursued an MA and PhD in American civilization from the University of Pennsylvania. Faust specialized in the history of the Old South and became a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2007, Faust became the first woman to serve as the president of Harvard University, where she used her position to advocate for greater access to higher education by expanding financial aid and grant programs. After she stepped down as president in 2018, she joined the board of directors of Goldman Sachs.

Faust is the author of several books on the history of the Civil War and the antebellum South. Her best-known work is This Republic of Suffering (2008), a study of how Americans in the North and South dealt with extreme casualties in the Civil War. The text was a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist. In her memoir Necessary Trouble, Faust explores the historical events to which she has dedicated her career on a personal level.