Associate Professor of Geography
Education
- Ph.D., Geography, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, October 2002
- Dissertation: “Community Schools in Community Development: Democracy, Education, and Social Change”
- Dissertation Director: Robert W. Lake
- M.A., Geography, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, 1997
- Thesis: “Schools and the Construction of the Local: Place, Race, and Politics in Bergen County”
- Thesis Director: Robert W. Lake
- B.A., Literature, Pitzer College, With Honors, Claremont, CA, 1992
- Thesis: “Beloved and Abused: Violence and Community in American Narratives”
- Thesis Director: Ruth Wilson Gilmore
Biography
Melina Patterson’s research and teaching interests in urban and political geography include the patterns and persistence of racial and economic inequality and struggles for social justice, the intersections of urban and natural processes and spaces, public space, and theories of the modern world economy.
- The Suburbs, Geography 490 (Senior Seminar)
- Globalizing Nature, Geography 490 (Senior Seminar)
- Policing the Planet, Geography 490 (Senior Seminar)
- Geographies of Children, Geography 410 (Special Topics)
- Revanchist City/Rebel City Geography 410/IDIS 400 (Special Topics/Urban Studies Capstone)
- The City, Geography 410/IDIS 400 (Special Topics/Urban Studies Capstone)
- Field Methods in Geography, Geography 365/IDIS 400
- Political Geography/Geopolitics, Geography 338
- The Nature of Cities, Geography 337
- Race and Place in America, Geography 331
- Geographic Methods, Geography 299
- Cities, Geography 237
- Geography and Civilization, Geography 205
- Regional Geography, Geography 101
- Race and Revolution: James Farmer and the Civil Rights Movement, FSEM 100G4
Patterson, Melina. 2016. Review of the book Urban Geography: A Critical Introduction by Andrew, E.G., Jonas Eugene McCann, and Mary Thomas. The Pennsylvania Geographer 54(2): 92-97.
Cooperman, Rosalyn, Melina Patterson, and Jess Rigelhaupt. 2016. Teaching Race and Revolution: Doing justice to women’s role in the struggle for civil rights. Political Science and Politics 49(3): 558-561.
Rallis, Donald and Melina Patterson. 2011. “Regional Geography and World History” in World History Encyclopedia, Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, Inc: 111-172.
Melina Patterson. Community-Based Education in West Philadelphia: The Promise and Limits of Social Capital Building. 2006. In Social Capital in the City: Community and Civic Life in Philadelphia. Richardson Dilworth, Ed. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006)
David M. Frankford, Melina Patterson, and Thomas R. Konrad. 2000. Transforming Practice Organizations to Foster Lifelong Learning and Commitment to Medical Professionalism. Academic Medicine, 75(7): 708-717.
