On August 24, 2020, Dr. Anne Patterson was sworn in as the Mission Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Nigeria.  Dr. Patterson began her career with USAID in 1992 as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow in the Near East Bureau where she worked on water and wastewater issues. 

She was sworn in as a career Foreign Service officer in 1994 and served tours in Egypt, Indonesia, West Bank Gaza, Iraq, Georgia, and the Europe and Eurasia Bureau in Washington. 

Most recently, she served as the Deputy Mission Director to USAID/Egypt and Mission Director to USAID/Lebanon. Patterson has a Ph.D. in Environmental Health from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and an M.S.P.H from the University of South Carolina.