Barbara Doherty was an educator and theologian. A Roman Catholic religious sister, she was a member of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. She was president of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana from 1984 to 1998. Other posts have been as director of the Institute of Religious Formation at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, president of the Indiana Conference of Higher Education, and on national boards of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Women's College Coalition.

The Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods are an apostolic congregation of Catholic women founded by Saint Theodora Guerin at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, in 1840. Mother Theodore and her five companion sisters departed from the Sisters of Providence of Ruillé-sur-Loir, France, at the invitation of the Bishop of Vincennes, Indiana, to found the Sisters of Providence in the United States. In 1843, the Indiana congregation became independent of the religious institute in Ruillé, and the Rules of the Congregation were approved by the Holy See in 1887.