KAUST Symposium

Robert A. Brown

Robert A. Brown


President, Boston University


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.