Biography

Robert A. Brown, a distinguished scholar of chemical engineering and an innovative leader in higher education, became the tenth president of Boston University in September 2005.

A Texas native, Dr. Brown, 56, earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota, where he worked under the guidance of Professor L.E. Scriven. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Sciences, among other professional societies, Dr. Brown was provost and Warren K. Lewis Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology immediately prior to his appointment at Boston University.

Dr. Brown joined the MIT faculty in 1979, beginning a distinguished career in education and research. He has published over 250 papers in areas related to mathematical modeling of transport phenomena in materials, and served as executive editor of the Journal of Chemical Engineering Science from 1991 to 2004. In his twenty-five years at MIT, he held several leadership positions including head of the Department of Chemical Engineering and dean of the School of Engineering. During his tenure as provost, which began in 1998, Dr. Brown oversaw the establishment of several major interdisciplinary initiatives, including the Singapore-MIT Alliance, a partnership in graduate engineering education and research between MIT and two universities in Singapore, and the Broad Institute, a multi-institutional collaboration in genomic medicine.

At Boston University, Dr. Brown has emphasized strengthening the core missions of undergraduate education, graduate and professional education, and research and scholarship across all seventeen schools and colleges. He initiated an eighteen-month strategic planning process that culminated in a plan entitled Forging our Future by Choosing to be Great. The plan, approved by the Board of Trustees in April 2007, articulates Boston University’s core values in a set of institutional commitments. It also defines goals to be met in order to establish Boston University as one of the great large private research universities in the world.

Dr. Brown is actively engaged in both the public and private sectors. In February 2006, President George W. Bush appointed him to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, a panel established to provide a steady stream of expert advice on a wide range of scientific and technical matters. He has served as a director of the DuPont Company since April 2007.

Dr. Brown is chairman of the Academic Research Council of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Singapore, a key funding body for academic research in that country. He previously served on the board of Singapore’s National Research Foundation. In recognition of his extraordinary contributions to higher education in Singapore, Dr. Brown was named an honorary citizen in January 2006. This award is the highest form of recognition given by the Singapore government to any non-Singaporean.

Dr. Brown lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, with his wife, Dr. Beverly Brown, a health care professional. They have two grown sons.

Curriculum Vitae

Robert A. Brown

Education

B.S. in Chemical Engineering with highest honors, University of Texas at Austin, 1973.
M.S. in Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 1975.
Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, University of Minnesota, 1979.

Professional Experience

Visiting Research Associate, Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Fall 1977.
Instructor, Department of Chemical Engineering and Material Science, University of Minnesota, 1978.
Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1979–1982.
Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1982–1984.
Professor of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1984–2005.
Arthur Dehun Little Professor of Chemical Engineering, M.I.T., 1986–1992.
Executive Officer, Department of Chemical Engineering, M.I.T., 1986–1988.
Co-Director, M.I.T. Supercomputer Facility, 1989–1994.
Head, Department of Chemical Engineering, M.I.T., 1989–1995.
Warren K. Lewis Professor, M.I.T., 1992–2005.
Dean of Engineering, M.I.T., 1996–1998.
Provost, M.I.T., 1998–2005.
President, Boston University, 2005–.
Professor of Engineering, College of Engineering, Boston University, 2005–.

Awards

Engineering Foundation Fellow, University of Texas, 1974.
Graduate School Fellow, University of Minnesota, 1978.
Outstanding Faculty Award, Department of Chemical Engineering, M.I.T.,
1980, 1983, 1985, and 1988.
Joseph R. Mares Associate Professor, 1981–1983.
Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar Award, 1983.
Young Author Award, American Association of Crystal Growth, 1984.
Allan P. Colburn Award, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, 1986.
Elected to the National Academy of Engineering, 1991.
Outstanding Young Texas-Ex Award, University of Texas Alumni Association, 1991.
Distinguished Graduate Award, School of Engineering, University of Texas, 1992.
Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1994.
Professional Progress Award, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, 1996. Professional Progress Lecture, 1997.
Elected to the National Academy of Sciences, 2001.
University of Texas at Austin Graduate School Outstanding Alumnus/a Award, 2003.

Honors and Lectureships

First Berkeley Lecturer in Chemical Engineering, University of California at Berkeley, 1986.
Allan P. Colburn Lecturer, University of Delaware, 1986.
Robert Vaughan Memorial Lecturer, California Institute of Technology, 1987.
Stanley Corrsin Memorial Lecturer in Fluid Mechanics, Johns Hopkins University, 1989.
Ernest Thiele Lecturer, Notre Dame University, 1989.
Centennial Lecturer, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas, 1991.
Merck Lecturer, Department of Chemical Engineering, Rutgers University, 1993.
David Mason Lecturer in Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, 1993.
Centennial Lecturer, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Tulsa, 1994.
Stanley Katz Memorial Lecturer, Department of Chemical Engineering, City College of New York, 1994.
Donald L. Katz Lectureship, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, 1995.
Richard Wilhelm Lecturer, Princeton University, 1995.
Peter V. Danckwerts Lecturer, Institute of Chemical Engineers, London, England, 1996.
J.D. Lindsay Lecturer, Texas A&M University, 1997.
Julian Smith Lecturer, Cornell University, 1997.
Founder’s Lecturer, University of Wisconsin, 1998.
Robert Pigford Lecturer, University of Delaware, 1999.
Lacy Lecturer, California Institute of Technology, 1999.
Kelly Lecturer, Purdue University, 2000.
Lavoisier Lecture, E.I.DuPont de Nemours and Company, 2001.
Parr Lecture, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Illinois, 2003.
Edison Lecture , College of Engineering, University of Notre Dame, 2003.
Distinguished Lecturer, School of Engineering, Arizona State University, 2003.
Rutherford Aris Lecturer, University of Minnesota, 2005.

Professional Activities: Editorial Boards

Member of Editorial Board, Journal of Applications of Supercomputers, 1986–1992.
Member of Editorial Board, Journal of Scientific Computing, 1986–2000.
Consulting Editor, AIChE Journal, 1991–1995.
Editorial Board, Journal of Computer-Aided Materials Development, 1992–2002.
Editorial Board, Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics, 1993–present.
Executive Editor, Chemical Engineering Science, 1991–2004.

Research Interests (Approximately 250 publications relating to these areas of engineering science)

• Mathematical modeling of the fluid mechanics, heat and mass transfer and interfacial phenomena associated with materials processing; especially, melt crystal growth, polymer processing and coating deposition.
• Fluid mechanics of viscoelastic fluids. Analysis and numerical simulation of flow instabilities.
• Prediction and characterization of microscopic changes in interface morphology during directional solidification. Experimental measurement of microscale morphologies in melt/solid interfaces during solidification.
• Efficient numerical solutions of transport problems, especially by finite element methods.
• Modeling the dynamics of defects in crystalline semiconductors grown from the melt and in semiconductor processing.