Lawrence Seldon Bacow is an American economist and retired university administrator. Bacow served as the 12th president of Tufts University from 2001 to 2011 and as the 29th president of Harvard University from 2018 to 2023. Before that, he was the Hauser leader-in-residence at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School.

Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, Massachusetts, and in Talloires, France. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. Tufts remained a small liberal arts college until the 1970s, when it transformed into a large research university offering several doctorates.