Jacqueline Patterson is the director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program. Since 2007, Patterson has served as coordinator and 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 and 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 and 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 twenty-three 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 US Peace Corps volunteer in Jamaica, West Indies.

Patterson’s publications/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;” and the book chapter, “Equity in Disasters: Civil and Human Rights Challenges in the Context of Emergency Events” in the book Building Community Resilience Post-Disaster. 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 International Committee of the US Social Forum, the Steering Committee for Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, Advisory Board for Center for Earth Ethics as well as on the boards of directors for the Institute of the Black World, Center for Story Based Strategy, and the US Climate Action Network.