Laura Trombley

Laura Trombley is the first female president of The Huntington, a collections-based research and educational institution in San Marino, California. Laura has cultivated a well-known role as a groundbreaking scholar in literature and in the humanities in general. Her 2010 book, Mark Twain's Other Woman, provided a captivating narrative of the final days of Mark Twain's life— and interwoven into this narrative was the presence of Twain's oft-ignored yet vastly important assistant, Isabel Lyon. Laura's focus on Isabel opened up new conversations about female roles throughout history and allowed a forgotten woman's story to finally be told.

Laura Trombley earned her BA and MA at Pepperdine University; she earned her PhD in English literature at Southern California University. Her expansive career includes teaching, administrative roles, and executive roles at colleges, often shaping the colleges' women studies programs. Trombley was the President of Pitzer College for thirteen years and she was the first woman west of the Mississippi appointed to chair the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.