Ann Pecora Diamond, 1946-

The elder daughter of Dorothy and David Pecora, Ann Pecora Diamond was born in Yonkers, New York, on September 14, 1946. She grew up in Saranac Lake, New York, where her father was chief surgeon at Ray Brook Hospital; during World War II, her mother had served as chief nurse of a field hospital under General Patton. She married Stephen L. Diamond, a lawyer, in 1967. In the early 1970s, they moved to Santa Monica, California, where they lived on a commune led by Betty Grover Eisner, a psychologist and early proponent of the use of psychedelic drugs in therapy. In a bid to save their marriage, the couple began to engage in an open marriage in 1971; they divorced in 1977.

Diamond received a B.A. in English from Syracuse University in 1967 and a B.S. in biology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1976. She took graduate classes in English and education at Columbia University and in cell biology at Yale University. Diamond remained at Yale University as an employee of the Yale University School of Medicine, working as an associate in research in hematology (1979-1984), assistant director of development (1984-1990), and associate director for stewardship in the office of development (1990-1993). In 1993, she sued Yale University for gender and age discrimination. Despite a ruling in Yale's favor, Diamond pursued the case until 2001, when the Connecticut Supreme Court refused to hear the case.