Patricia Lynne Duffy
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Patricia Lynne Duffy is an instructor in the UN Language and Communications Programme. She has an M.A. from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is an Acting Officer of the UN Society of Writers and on the management committee of the UN 1% for Development Fund.
Duffy is the author of Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color Their Worlds, the first book by a synesthete about synesthesia.[citation needed] 'Blue Cats' has been reviewed in both the popular press as well as in academic journals, Cerebrum and the APA Review of Books. The book describes Duffy's own experience of synesthesia, as well as that of the many synesthetes she interviewed, as well as theories of what causes synesthetic perception.
Duffy is also the author of the chapter, "Synesthesia and Literature", included in the Oxford Handbook of Synesthesia (Oxford University Press, 2013).
Duffy has taught English at New York University, the City University of New York, and the UN Language and Communications Programme, including staff training abroad at UN offices in Addis Ababa, Arusha, Entebbe, Kigali, Monrovia, Nairobi, and Port-au-Prince. Her article on development micro-projects, "Kitengesa, Uganda: Happy Developments" was published on the web site of Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs. In addition, Duffy has written articles for publications including New York Newsday, the San Francisco Chronicle (All the Colors of the Rainbow), the Boston Globe, and the Village Voice. Ms. Duffy wrote two award-winning essays, Taipei Tales and Dining in French for the literary journal Literal Latte. Her work is included in the anthologies They Only Laughed Later: Tales of Women on the Move (Europublic Press) and Soulful Living (HCI). She has traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia and lived and worked in China for a year and a half.
Her special interest is in what she terms "personal coding", the unique way in which each person codes information and makes a one-of-a-kind "inner map" of the world around them. She has been interviewed about her research and her synesthesia by a number of publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Smithsonian magazine, Discover Magazine, and Newsweek, as well as on TV and radio programs such as National Public Radio, the BBC, Public Radio International and the Discovery Channel.
Duffy has given presentations on synesthesia at Yale University, Princeton University, the University of California, San Diego, Rockefeller University, the University of Virginia, the University of Hanover, the University of Almeria, University of Granada, University of Jaen, University of Stockholm and others. Duffy was invited to be a Plenary Speaker on synesthesia at the "Towards a Science of Consciousness" conference at University of Arizona at Tucson. She is a co-founder of and consultant to the American Synesthesia Association.
External links
- Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens
- Action through Words - Learning English through learning about the United Nations
- "Dining in French"