Patricia Lynne Duffy

Who is Patricia Lynne Duffy?

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 its liaison to the UN 1% for Development Fund.

Duffy is the author of Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color their Worlds, which has been reviewed in both the popular press as well as in academic journals, Cerebrum and the APA Review of Books. She has taught English at New York University, the City University of New York, and the UN Language Programme and has written articles for numerous publications including New York Newsday, the San Francisco Chronicle, 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 and Soulful Living. 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.