124 and counting: Brown surpasses campaign faculty milestone

Building a corps of faculty leaders

The impact of these 124 faculty chairs is being felt across the University. Because these chairs will exist in perpetuity, they represent financial stability. And, although some have been filled with distinguished scholars who were already teaching and conducting research at Brown, many have also been instrumental in bringing exceptional leaders to the University, including Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women Director Leela Gandhi and Legorreta Cancer Center Director Wafik El-Deiry.

“This was a great opportunity to build a program, to shape the future of cancer research and treatment,” says El-Deiry, who brought more than $8 million in grant funding to Brown when he arrived in 2018. “When prospective faculty and researchers see what’s coming together here, they see the trajectory. And they want to be a part of that.”

New endowed chairs have also helped lay the foundation for the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship, the Bravo Center for Economic Research, and the Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research, and strengthened other areas where Brown is poised to lead, such as engineering, brain science, and public health.

“What means the most to me about my endowed professorship is that it brings together an incredible group of people, who are like-minded fighters for Alzheimer’s disease research and cure,” says GLF Translational Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry Yu-Wen Alvin Huang. “This is a group who would otherwise not be connected.”

Rafael LaPorta, the Robert J. and Nancy D. Carney University Professor of Economics, was one of the earliest new hires in a department that has added multiple endowed chairs.

“I’m a member of a great team,” he says. “Additional endowed chairs provide a bigger pool of people with whom we can interact and grow. Brown is asking for support to bring about transformational change. There is a sense that we are at a turning point, an inflection point, and I joined Brown to be part of that change.”

A diversity of minds, disciplines, and identities

With new endowed chairs at all levels and in a variety of disciplines, the University has also been able to make significant progress towards expanding the diversity of experience and interest that faculty bring to the classroom.

The current group of chairholders includes women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM); early-career researchers building portfolios in emerging fields; working artists and community leaders; and a growing number of scholars from historically underrepresented groups. 

“Women students haven’t always seen successful role models in engineering,” says Linda Abriola, the Joan Wernig and E. Paul Sorensen Professor of Engineering. “I want to work with them to let them know there are many models of success in this area. The more Brown can provide a sense of community, the more successful women here will be.”

Overall, women in STEM comprised approximately 11.4% of Brown’s total faculty in 2021-22, and the number of faculty members from historically underrepresented groups has risen from 50 in 2016 to 120 in 2022.

Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo, the David S. Josephson Assistant Professor of Music, came to Brown first as a postdoctoral fellow with the Department of Music and the Cogut Institute for the Humanities before being offered the endowed chair she now holds. She is a working rap artist and producer, who brings expertise in Afro-diasporic music-making, the intersection of gender and technology, and sound in gaming. 

“As someone who has long been invested in developing a multidisciplinary academic practice, I'm excited to be in an environment that takes interdisciplinarity very seriously,” she says. “I've really found that the diversity of scholarly and creative interests of the students who take my classes pushes me to develop more robust, inclusive, and engaging courses.”

Strengthening teaching and research for the future

The financial investments in faculty support during the BrownTogether campaign go far beyond just endowed chairs. Research and travel funding as well as increased opportunities to mentor students, convene workshops and conferences with peers across the academy, and develop curriculum innovations have made Brown an attractive place for faculty, regardless of their chosen discipline.

In 2021, Jeffrey Niedermaier accepted the Mulberry Essence Assistant Professorship, which allows him to combine his expertise in comparative literature and East Asian studies.

“This position gives me an unparalleled opportunity to expose undergraduate students to some of the greatest monuments of Japanese culture; to equip a generation of graduate students in the comparative literature Ph.D. program with expertise in Japanese literature; and to share my research about pre-modern Japan's underappreciated worldliness with an international community of scholars.”

Caroline R. Richardson, who came to Brown after 24 years at the University of Michigan, feels a strong connection with her endowed chair, the George A. and Marilyn M. Bray Professorship. Her work as a diabetes prevention researcher dovetails with Dr. George Bray’s life’s work in exploring the biological underpinnings of obesity.

“This chair is helping me and my colleagues take Dr. Bray's decades of leadership, research, and mentorship in obesity science to the next step,” she says. “This is critical research about systems and strategies for disseminating effective obesity treatment for those patients, families, and communities who are at the highest risk for health problems associated with obesity.”

The teachers, scholars, and mentors who fill endowed chairs at Brown continue to shape an ever-more dynamic learning environment and contribute their expertise to a robust research enterprise that addresses the world’s most pressing issues.

“With support from BrownTogether, we have been fortunate to bring new faculty to Brown who are at the very top of their fields as well as rising stars whose innovative, collaborative approaches align with the core of Brown’s academic excellence,” said Provost Richard M. Locke. “As we move forward, it’s essential to grow our faculty ranks even further in key areas where the new knowledge they generate can have a significant impact well beyond the Brown campus.”