Jill Kathryn Ker Conway (born 1934) was a historian interested in the role of women in American history. She became the first woman president of Smith College in 1975.

Jill Kathryn Ker was born in Hillston, New South Wales, Australia, a small town 75 miles from her parents' sheep station, on October 9, 1934. She earned her B.A. and a university medal at the University of Sydney in 1958 and received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1969. Her unpublished but widely-cited dissertation, "The First Generation of American Women Graduates," an intellectual history of Jane Addams and other progressive women reformers, almost single-handedly rekindled scholarly interest in women's contributions to Progressive Era America.

While attending Harvard University Jill Ker met and married John Conway, a history professor in whose course she was a teaching assistant. She followed him to Toronto, where he became one of the founders of York University and she joined...