Patricia Seed is an American historian, and author of the books To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico, Ceremonies of Possession in the New World, and American Pentimento. She specializes in the history of cartography and navigation, and is a foremost authority on the topic of latitude as it relates to the historical use of maps in maritime exploration. Her specialities include history of the early modern and colonial European eras, especially in relation to Spanish and Portuguese-speaking cultures.
After spending two decades as a professor at Rice University, she moved to the faculty of the University of California, Irvine in 2005. She lives with her husband, the anthropologist George Marcus, with whom she has two children, Rachel and Avery.