Boyd Crumrine Patterson was an American mathematician and the ninth president of Washington & Jefferson College. Patterson was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, on April 23, 1902, and graduated from Washington and Jefferson College in 1923, completing his studies in three years. He was a member of the well-known Crumrine family of Washington County and a third-generation W&J graduate. His father, John P. Patterson, was a member of W&J's class of 1885; his grandfather, Boyd Crumrine, a noted local historian, was in Jefferson College's class of 1860. He was also a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.