Claire C. Robertson (b. 1944) received her B.A. from Carleton College in 1966, her M.A. from the University of Chicago in 1968, and her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1974. She is the author or editor of eight books and numerous articles on women, class and gender relations, and African studies. Dr. Robertson is the winner of the African Studies Association's 1985 Herskovits Book Award and recipient of numerous other academic awards, grants, and prizes.

Throughout her career Robertson has taught courses at a number of universities and institutions and conducted research on African women, Third World women and socioeconomic change, female marketing systems, women and slavery in Africa and the Americas, Third World education, Third World development, feminist theory and research methodology, issues of the representation of African women, and comparative perspectives regarding colonialism and women. Between 1975 and 1976 Robertson was a Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Bucknell University; between 1976 and 1977 she was an Assistant Professor of history at the State University of New York-Oswego; she researched in Ghana under the SSRC/ACLS (Social Science Research Council and American Council of Learned Societies) Grant between 1977 and 1978; between 1978-1980 she was a Ford Foundation post-doctoral grant holder; from 1980 to 1982 Robertson was an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Ball State University; between 1984 and 1987 Robertson was an Assistant Professor in the Departments of History and the Women's Studies Program at Ohio State University; between 1997 and 1998 she was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the Women's Studies and History Departments at University of Wisconsin, Madison; in 1998 and 1999 she was a Senior Scholar in Residence at Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis; and in 1987 Robertson was appointed Associate Professor in the Departments of History and Women's Studies at Ohio State University.

In 1987-1988, Dr. Robertson held a Fulbright Fellowship to study the development of Kenyan trade and market women in the Nairobi area. As an Assistant Professor and then as an Associate Professor of history and women's studies at Ohio State University, Robertson was an active member of many committees and projects. She also participated in a number of community projects and professional associations relating to her research and academic interests such as the African Studies Association. As of March 2018, Dr. Robertson is currently an Emeritus Professor of Women's Studies and History at Ohio State University.

Robertson has also served in various capacities at Indiana University throughout her career. Beginning in 1978 she served as a Faculty Research Associate in the African Studies Program; in 1984 Robertson was the Co-Director of the Office of Women's Affairs; from 1992 until 1993 she was appointed as a Visiting Scholar in the Women's Studies Program; and she has since served as a Lecturer and been involved in IU's Fair Trade Bloomington selling artisan-made items to benefit two projects Ndethya wa Ngutethya Women's Group and Spurgeon School for AIDS Orphans in Kenya. The Indiana University Press published her books, Sharing the Same Bowl: A Socioeconomic History of Women and Class in Accra, Ghana in 1984 and Trouble Showed the Way: Women, Men, and Trade in the Nairobi Area, 1890-1990 in 1997.