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Charlotte Alison Quinn was a scholar of African studies, a diplomat, an author, and an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Quinn received a Bachelors of Arts from Bryn Mawr College in 1956 and obtained her Masters and PhD from the University of California at Los Angeles. She worked as a reporter for Life and Time magazines from 1956 to 1960, and as chief of research for Time Life Books from 1978 to 1980. She was director of the African Studies program at Lorton prison in the early 1970s, during which she also ran women's programs at the American Historical Association.

Between 1981 and 1988, Dr. Quinn worked as a senior political analyst for the CIA, specializing in African and Islamic studies for eight years before shifting to Europe. From 1992 until 1995, Quinn worked for the United States State Department at the United States Embassy in Warsaw. From 1996 to 1998, she was a deputy for Europe on the National Intelligence Council.

Quinn wrote many scholarly articles and completed one book in her lifetime, the 1972 study Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia: Traditionalism, Islam, and European Expansion. She was writing a second book at the time of her death with the working title of "Islam in Africa in the 20th Century." After Dr. Quinn died in 2000, her husband, Frederick Quinn, completed the manuscript, which was published in 2004 as Pride, Faith and Fear: Islam in the Sub-Saharan Africa. (Source: "Obituary: Charlotte Alison Quinn," The Washington Post, July 21, 2000.)