Laurie L. Patton is the 17th president of Middlebury College, and the first woman to lead the institution in its over 200 year history. Before coming to Middlebury, she was the Dean of Duke University’s Trinity College of Arts and Sciences as well as the Robert F. Durden Professor of Religion. Her scholarly interests are in the interpretation of early Indian ritual and narrative, comparative mythology, literary theory in the study of religion, and women and Hinduism in contemporary India. She is the author or editor of 10 books and more than 60 articles and has translated the classical Sanskrit text The Bhagavad Gita.