Jacqueline Patterson

Jacqueline Patterson is the Senior Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program. Since 2007 Patterson has served as coordinator & co-founder of Women of Color United. Jacqui Patterson has worked as a researcher, program manager, coordinator, advocate, and activist working on women’s rights, violence against women, HIV & AIDS, racial justice, economic justice, and environmental and climate justice. Patterson served as a Senior Women’s Rights Policy Analyst for ActionAid where she integrated a women’s rights lens for the issues of food rights, macroeconomics, and climate change as well as the intersection of violence against women and HIV & AIDS. Previously, she served as Assistant Vice President of HIV/AIDS Programs for IMA World Health, providing management and technical assistance to medical facilities and programs in 23 countries in Africa and the Caribbean. Patterson served as the Outreach Project Associate for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and Research Coordinator for Johns Hopkins University. She also served as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Jamaica, West Indies.   

Patterson’s publication and articles include: “Jobs vs Health: An Unnecessary Dilemma,” “Climate Change is a Civil Rights Issue,” “Gulf Oil Drilling Disaster: Gendered Layers of Impact,” “Disasters, Climate Change Uproot Women of Color,” “Coal Blooded: Putting Profits Before People,” “Just Energy Policies: Reducing Pollution, Creating Jobs,” “And the People Shall Lead: Centralizing Frontline Community Leadership in the Movement Towards a Sustainable Planet,” the chapter “Equity in Disasters: Civil and Human Rights Challenges in the Context of Emergency Events” in the book Building Community Resilience Post-Disaster, and the chapter “A Circuitous Path to Climate Justice” in the book All We Can Save.  

Patterson holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Maryland and a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves on the Steering Committee for the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, the Advisory Board for the Center for Earth Ethics, as well as on the Boards of Directors for the Institute of the Black World, The Hive: Gender and Climate Justice Fund, the American Society of Adaptation Professionals, Greenpeace, the Bill Anderson Fund, the People’s Solar Energy Fund, and the National Black Workers Center Project.