Patricia A. Cahill is Associate Professor in the Department of English. She received a BA in English from Wellesley College and an MA, MPhil, and PhD, with distinction, from Columbia University.

A specialist in English Renaissance literature (especially drama) and culture, Cahill has additional teaching and research interests in critical theory and gender studies and is a member of the Associated Faculty of the Women's Studies Department. A recipient of grants from the Whiting Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Huntington Library, and the Newberry Library, she is a contributor to the Blackwell Companion to Shakespeare's Works (2003) and has recently completed a book entitled Unto the Breach: Martial Formations, Historical Trauma, and the Early Modern Stage, which has been published by Oxford University Press. Cahill is presently editing Shakespeare's Richard III as part of the Barnes & Noble Shakespeare Series, as well as writing a new book, provisionally entitled Shakespeare's Skin, which explores the relationship between the theater and the sense of touch in early modern England.