Biography

Rubin Patterson, Ph.D., has served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences since August 1, 2019, where he has prioritized support for students to receive and for faculty to deliver a world-class liberal arts education rooted in the global African diasporic experience. Dean Patterson supports faculty in ongoing curricular innovation as well as supporting faculty research productivity, including in fields such as Data Science, AI, digital humanities, competition between democratic and authoritarian governing systems, etc. Dean Patterson also played a leadership role in the establishment of the Department of Earth, Environment, and Equity, and he has served on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Advisory Committee for the Office of Children’s Health Protection. Experiential learning, prominently including study abroad, has been one of his strategic priorities so that substantially more students in the College of Arts and Sciences will pursue such life-transforming and career-enhancing experiences. International partnerships between the College of Arts and Sciences and foreign universities—primarily in Africa but also in Asia and Europe—have grown in number and in substance under his leadership. His extensive international experience also includes having served as a research associate at the University of the Witwatersrand, in South Africa, and as a visiting professor at the University of Ghana.

Patterson’s collaborative scholarly work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Park Service, the National Security Agency, and philanthropic institutions. He has researched and published broadly in the fields of Southern African development, international development, and environmental studies. Among his major scholarly activities over the past two years has been Associate Editorship of the Sage Encyclopedia of Environmental Justice, which will be published in 2026 and will include nearly 400 entries from leading environmental justice scholars around the world that touch every facet of environmental justice. Dean Patterson is also now pursuing research concerning the political economy of fossil fuels and energy transition in the United States and in South Africa. 

Before his appointment as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Howard University, he served as Chair of Howard’s Department of Sociology and Criminology for four and a half years. Prior to his Howard Chair and faculty appointment, he served at the University of Toledo in various capacities, including Chair of Sociology and Anthropology, Director of Africana Studies, Director of the Institute for the Study and Economic Engagement of Southern Africa, and Professor of Sociology. He has also served as a visiting fellow at Morehouse College and the University of Maryland.

Dean Patterson earned a Ph.D. in Sociology at Howard University, and he received a Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Physics and Electrical Engineering from Florida State University and a Master of Science in Engineering Management from George Washington University. Before becoming an academic, he also had a brief career as a manufacturing engineer in the semiconductor and satellite communication industries.