Donna A. Patterson is a Fellow with the Future Security Program and a Professor and the Chair of the Department of History, Political Science, Philosophy, and Law Studies at Delaware State University. She also directs the university’s Africana Studies Program. She was a 2016 Carnegie Fellow at New America. She is currently working on two book projects, one on pandemics (Ebola and COVID-19) and another on Black Texans.
Patterson specializes in African and African Diaspora studies with particular expertise in global health, geopolitics, pharmaceutical markets, epidemics, gender, and history of medicine. Her book Pharmacy in Senegal: Gender, Healing, and Entrepreneurship was published in 2015. Pharmacy in Senegal was featured in NPR and in Pharmacy Times and won the inaugural book club award for Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Global Health Now. In addition, she has published scholarly articles in history of medicine global health, and more in the Journal of Women’s History, Journal of Healthcare for the Poor and Underserved, and Anthropologie et Santé, and World Medical and Health Policy Journal. She is the editor of a book series Routledge Research in Health and Healing in Africa and the African Diaspora.
Patterson regularly participates in meetings, moderates panels and gives workshops on myriad topics, including COVID-19, geopolitics, global health, pharmaceutical markets, women’s health, racial and health equity, and leadership to public, academic, and corporate communities. For instance, in 2022 and 2023, she gave talks and participated in public and private briefings on COVID-19. In December 2022, she moderated a side event during the African Leaders Summit in Washington, DC and in February 2023, she spoke on a panel, “Next Steps After the African Leaders Summit” at USGLC’s Mid-Atlantic Summit in Wilmington, DE. This panel was comprised of Dr. Patterson, Senator Chris Coons, Judd Devermont, Liz Schrayer, and President William Ruto (Kenya) who joined the panel virtually. Since 2020, she’s given keynotes, commentary, and facilitated workshops on Juneteenth to corporate and academic audiences.
Her media commentary has appeared at Slate, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, the Christian Science Monitor, ABC-47, Huffington Post, Foreign Policy, SCMP, Globe and Mail, KJZZ (Phoenix NPR), Delaware Public Media, Al Jazeera, Volkskrant, Time Magazine, NBCU Academy, Nieuwsuur, Agence France Presse, Delaware State News, the New America Weekly, and in other outlets. Patterson has received fellowships and grants from Fulbright, the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Princeton University, Wilson Center, New America, the West African Research Association, Kelly School of Business, and Delaware’s Department of Education.
Previously, she worked for a consulting firm in Washington, D.C. and taught at Wellesley College. For more information visit her website.