Katie Harris (1969–2025) was a member of the UC Davis History Department for two decades, teaching early modern European history. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and raised in Palo Alto, she was known to joke about being “dragooned” into the family business of academia. In fact, coercion was unnecessary. When asked about her career path in a 2019 interview on the UC Davis radio station, Katie recounted that she had wanted to be a historian for as long as she could remember, even “playing professor” during make-believe games with her sister as a child.