Olivia Patton is a Ph.D.  student in the Africology & African American Studies program at Temple University. Olivia obtained her Bachelor of Science in Humanities and Geography from Jacksonville University in 2014. She is a fraternal member of Gamma Theta Epsilon. Olivia holds TEFL and Teenage Learner’s certificates with distinction from CIEE. She serviced Compass AmeriCorps as a Family Literacy and Adult Education ESL instructor. Prior to enrollment in the Africology graduate program, she was the Associate Aquatic Director for YMCA of Greater Springfield.

Olivia’s academic research interests center around African women’s epistemology, ultimately seeking to discover what the cultural knowledge base is for African women on the continent as well as throughout the diaspora and how it has manifested itself prior to and after European colonization.