Donna A. Patterson teaches history in the Department of Africana Studies at Wellesley College. Her current and past courses include "Health and Healthcare Professionals in the African Diaspora," "Islam in Black America," "Francophone Africa" and "Gender, Identity and Islam."  Her research interests include entrepreneurship, gender, public health and transnational exchange in the Atlantic World.  In addition to projects on traditional medicine in Cuba and African-Asian trading networks, she is revising a book manuscript on biomedical pharmacists in Dakar, Senegal, and commencing another project on Creole pharmacists in 19th- and 20th-century New Orleans.  She has recently published essays and articles on pharmacy ownership, Senegal, and Louisiana politics.

In addition to teaching, she provides cultural and trade expertise to domestic and international organizations, businesses and governments.  She has advised businesses and foreign governments on trade, public relations and humanitarian concerns and, while working at the Dakar Embassy, she facilitated the U.S. Secretary of Transportation's Open Skies Summit.  She has recently provided televised socio-economic analysis of Post-Katrina New Orleans and contemporary African affairs.

Professor Patterson has also taught courses at Dillard University and the University of Houston.  From 2005-2006, she was a visiting fellow in the Department of History at Princeton University and in the summer of 2004, she held a summer fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.

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Profile last updated: 9/08