First Ladies: Their enduring impact on American life

Teri Finneman is an associate professor in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas and publisher of The Eudora Times, a nationally recognized news desert publication that she runs with journalism students. She is coeditor of A Cambridge Companion to U.S. First Ladies (2025). She previously worked as a print journalist and multimedia correspondent covering state government, business, and enterprise. Finneman is founder and executive producer of the Journalism History podcast and The First Ladies podcast. She is also the author of Press Portrayals of Women Politicians, 1870s-2000s (2015), coeditor of Social Justice, Activism and Diversity in U.S. Media History (2023), and coauthor of Reviving Rural News (2024).

Heath Hardage Lee is an award-winning historian, biographer, and curator. She is the author of The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington's Most Private First Lady. Her book The League of Wives: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took On the U.S. Government To Bring Their Husbands Home from Vietnam is being developed into a television series. Lee’s work has been featured on the Today Show, C-SPAN, and on the Smithsonian Channel’s America’s Hidden Stories. She also writes about history and politics for publications such as Time, The Hill, The Atlantic and White House History Quarterly. She holds a BA in history from Davidson College and an MA in French language and literature from the University of Virginia.

Michael LaRosa is a partner in the Washington, DC office of Ballard Partners. Before that, he was a managing director at the Penta Group. LaRosa served in the White House as press secretary to First Lady Jill Biden and special assistant to the president. LaRosa was Dr. Biden’s chief spokesperson for the inauguration, the Biden-Harris transition team, the Biden-Harris campaign, and Joe Biden’s campaign for the presidential nomination during the 2020 Democratic primaries. LaRosa also led communications on Capitol Hill for the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for the ranking member, Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and the House Democratic Policy Communications Committee in the Office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Prior to his time on Capitol Hill, Michael was a television producer for MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews.

Barbara A. Perry is the J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance at the Miller Center, where she codirects the Presidential Oral History Program. She has authored or edited 17 books on presidents, First Ladies, the Kennedy family, the Supreme Court, and civil rights and civil liberties. Perry has conducted more than 150 interviews for the George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama Presidential Oral History Projects; interviewed President Bill Clinton; and directed the Edward Kennedy Oral History Project's conclusion. She served as a U.S. Supreme Court fellow and has worked for both Republican and Democratic members of the Senate. Perry earned a BA in political science from the University of Louisville, an MA in politics, philosophy, and economics from Oxford University, and a PhD in government from the University of Virginia.