Elizabeth L. Hillman is the 14th President of Mills College and has been a national leader in promoting gender and racial equity, especially in the U.S. armed forces.

A scholar of history and law, Hillman frequently speaks and publishes on issues of sexual violence and gender equity and teaches courses at Mills. Her expertise in sexual violence and gender issues in the military has won national and international recognition. She has been an expert witness for Congress and national commissions, most recently at a Congressional Women’s Caucus hearing to address nonconsensual pornography in the U.S. military, and served on the Response Systems to Adult Sexual Assault Crimes Panel — an independent panel chartered by the U.S. Congress to study and make recommendations about sexual assault in the U.S. military. A veteran of the U.S. Air Force, Hillman was president of the National Institute of Military Justice and reporter for the two Cox Commission reports, which recommended improvements to the U.S. military justice system.

Hillman also has engaged nationally in higher education leadership. She serves on the board of the Women’s College Coalition, as a member of the NCAA Division III Chancellors and Presidents Advisory Group, and is a founding member of the President's Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. She was appointed to serve on a blue-ribbon study group, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Committee Addressing Sexual Harassment in the Science, Engineering, and Medical Workplaces that released a path-breaking report in 2018.

Hillman is the former provost and academic dean at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, where she also served as the chief academic officer. She served as professor of law and director of faculty development at Rutgers University School of Law and taught at Yale University and the U.S. Air Force Academy. She also served as a space operations officer and orbital analyst in the U.S. Air Force.

She received her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Duke University and a master’s in history from the University of Pennsylvania. She received a J.D. from Yale Law School and a Ph.D. in history, with a focus on women’s history, from Yale University.