Margaret Scotford Archer (born 20 January 1943) spent most of her academic career at the University of Warwick, UK, where she was for many years Professor of Sociology. She is now a professor at l'Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland. She is best known for coining the term elisionism in her 1995 book Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach. In April 2014, Professor Archer was named by Pope Francis to succeed former Harvard law professor and U.S.