Donna A. Patterson

Former Fellow

Professional Affiliation

Professor, Department of History, Political Science, and Philosophy, Delaware State University

Expert Bio

Donna A. Patterson, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of the Department of History, Political Science, and Philosophy at Delaware State University. She is the author of Pharmacy in Senegal: Gender, Healing, and Entrepreneurship. She has published scholarly articles on global health, history of medicine, pharmaceutical markets, and Ebola in the Journal of Women’s History, Anthropologie et Santé, Journal of Global Health Reports and the Journal of Healthcare for the Poor and Underserved. In 2020, her article on COVID-19, “Small State, Big Impact: Delaware’s COVID-19 Response,” was published in World Medical and Health Policy Journal. Dr. Patterson is on the editorial advisory boards of Africa Today and the World Medical and Health Policy Journal. She is an Associate Review Editor for the American Historical Review. In addition, Dr. Patterson is also on the advisory board of the Mitchell Center for African American Heritage in Wilmington, Delaware. Dr. Patterson is the editor of the Routledge Research in Health and Healing in Africa and the African Diaspora.

Patterson regularly lectures, participates in meetings, and comments on public health, African politics, health disparities, racial equity, African and African American studies, Juneteenth, HBCUs, and on current events (US, Africa, Europe). She has given talks hosted by Columbia University, University of Toronto, Wellesley College, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Office of the Governor of Delaware, Wilson Center, Marywood University, University of South Florida, the University of London, Arizona State University, UTMB, Bank of America, and elsewhere. In addition, she has moderated panels at the Harvard Business School, Delaware State University, New America, Wellesley College, World Trade Center, and for UNFPA at ICPD 25 in Nairobi, Kenya. In addition, she regularly gives keynote lectures related to her research.

Dr. Patterson’s media commentary has appeared at Slate, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Al Jazeera, Globe and Mail, South China Morning Post, San Diego Union Tribune, African Arguments, Huffington Post, Foreign Policy, Christian Science Monitor, Vox, De Volksrant, Sciences Humaines, Pacific Standard, Delaware Public Media, The Appeal, New America Weekly, ABC, CBS, PBS, VOA, Pacifica, and in other outlets.

In addition to her academic work, Patterson provides consulting expertise on a variety of issues to corporations, NGOs, law offices, and government agencies.

Patterson teaches courses in history, political science, global health, and Africana studies. For more information, you can visit her website here.

Wilson Center Project

Ebola, West Africa, and the World

Major Publications

Pharmacy in Senegal: Gender, Healing, and Entrepreneurship (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 2015.
“Small State, Big Impact: Delaware’s COVID-19 Response,” World Medical and Health Policy Journal, 12.3, September (2020): 328-333: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wmh3.368
“Le virus Ebola: un révélateur d’inégalités biomédicales et une intervention internationale hétérogène—Ebola: Inequalities in Biomedical Capacity and Heterogeneous International Response),” Anthropologie & Santé, December, 2015: http://anthropologiesante.revues.org/1914.
(Featured in Sciences Humaines: print edition March 2016 and online in February 2016: https://www.scienceshumaines.com/ebola-le-senegal-et-le-nigeria-exemplaires_fr_35772.html).