Laura Katz Olson joined the Department of Political Science at Lehigh in 1974. She was chair of the department from 2003 to 2007. Olson grew up in the Bronx, New York, and received her undergraduate education at the City College of New York (CCNY). After traveling throughout Western Europe and South America for two years, she entered the doctoral program in political science at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where her received her Ph.D. in 1974.