Linda M. Perkins is a leader in History and Women’s Studies, specializing in Black Women in Higher Education.

Linda M. Perkins is University Professor and Director of Applied Gender Studies at Claremont Graduate University. She holds an interdisciplinary university appointment in the departments of Applied Gender Studies, Educational Studies, and History. Her primary areas of research are on the history of African-American women’s higher education, the education of African Americans in elite institutions, and the history of talent identification programs for African-American students.

With a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Perkins has made her career as a historian of women’s and African-American higher education. She has published and lectured nationally and internationally on Black women’s higher education, including the history of Black women in the Seven Sister Colleges, the history of Black women in HBCUs, the history of Black women's graduate education, the history of Black women in the professoriate as well as the history of Black students in Talent Identification Program. Her first book was on Fanny Jackson Coppin, the second Black woman to earn a college degree (Oberlin,1865) who served as the head of the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia(1866-1913). Her forthcoming book, To Advance the Race: the History of Black Women’s Higher Education from the Antebellum Era to the 1960s (University of Illinois Press, 2024). discusses the myriad of experiences and institutions of Black women in higher education.

Perkins served as vice president of Division F (History and Historiography) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and as a member of the Executive Council of AERA. She is President-elect of the History of Education Society (VP in 2024, President in 2025). She is a member of the Board of the International Center for Research on Women, where she serves as a board member of their Asia and Africa Center. Perkins is also a member of the Ms. Magazine Board of Scholars.

She is also an authority on issues related to Women’s and Gender Studies. She focuses on global gender studies in the program that she directs.