Penda Mbow (born 1955) is a historian, an activist, and a Senegalese politician.

Minister of Culture of Senegal for several months in 2001, she is a professor at Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar and president of Mouvement citoyen (Citizens' Movement).

[citation needed] Penda Mbow was born in April 1955.

In 1986, she obtained a doctorate in Medieval History at Université de Provence in France, with a thesis titled L'aristocratie militaire mameluke d'après le cadastre d'Ibn al-Ji'an : éléments de comparaison avec la France (in English: The Mameluke Military Aristocracy after the Public Register of Ibn al-Ji'an: Elements of Comparison with France).

Her academic research focuses on African intellectual history and Islamic gender studies.