Donna Patterson

Donna A. Patterson, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of History and Director of Africana Studies at Delaware State University. She is the author of Pharmacy in Senegal: Gender, Healing, and Entrepreneurship. She has published scholarly articles on pharmaceutical markets, women pharmacists and Ebola in the Journal of Healthcare for the Poor and Underserved, Anthropologie et Santé, and the Journal of Women's History. Patterson has received fellowships from Fulbright IIE, the Woodrow Wilson Center, Princeton University, the American Historical Association, the West African Research Association (WARA) and the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB). Dr. Patterson is currently working on a book project tentatively entitled, “Drug Trafficking, Consumption, and Health in Africa.” In this book, she chronicles drug distribution and consumption from the 1940s to the present in Senegal and Ethiopia with supporting examples from Cape Verde and Djibouti. She also examines the public health impact of drug consumption. In preparing for this project, she has made multiple trips to Senegal and Ethiopia and one to Cape Verde.