Katrina B. Olds

Katrina B. Olds is a Professor and Chair of the History Department at the University of San Francisco. She specializes in early modern European and Latin American history, with a focus on Counter-Reformation Catholicism, religious belief, and the intersection of humor, sexuality, and sacred practices. Her research explores topics such as historical forgeries, relics, and the cultural politics of memory.

Olds holds a PhD and MA in History from Princeton University and a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. She has held significant administrative roles, including Chair of the History Department (2023–2025), Director of the Saint Ignatius Institute (2019–2022), and Academic Advisor for USF Study Abroad programs in Oxford. She has also served on tenure and promotion committees and the Deans Medal Selection Committee.

Her notable works include Forging the Past: Invented Histories in Counter-Reformation Spain (Yale, 2015), which won the John Gilmary Shea Prize. She is co-editing the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to Counter-Reformation Saints and Sainthood. Her current research projects investigate blasphemy in the Spanish Enlightenment and the role of laughter in early modern sacred contexts.

Awarded the USF Distinguished Research Award (2017) and multiple fellowships, Olds is actively engaged in interdisciplinary teaching through the Saint Ignatius Institute and Honors College, emphasizing the humanities' relevance to contemporary issues.