Image of Professor Elspeth Brown
Professor Elspeth Brown from UTM's Department of Historical Studies

UofT Mississauga professor appointed Associate Vice-Principal Research

Carla DeMarco
car.demarco@utoronto.ca

Professor Elspeth Brown has accepted the position of interim Associate Vice-Principal Research (AVPR) in the Office of the Vice-Principal, Research (OVPR).

“We are delighted to have Professor Brown join our team in this new role,” says Professor Kent Moore, UTM’s Vice-Principal Research.

“The valuable insights and unique perspective she will bring to the portfolio will not only be of great value to the OVPR, but will serve as a significant contribution and enhance what we offer to the research community at UofT Mississauga.”

A UTM faculty member since 2000, Professor Brown has applied her extensive expertise across a range of research fields: queer and trans history; the history of US capitalism; oral history; the history and theory of photography. Now, as the principal investigator for the SSHRC-funded LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory, she leads a virtual working space where members come together to share new ideas about the creation of LGBTQ oral histories in the digital age. 

Former director of the Centre for the Study of the United States (CSUS) at the Munk School, Professor Brown has more recently chaired the Steering Committee for the new Collaborative and Digital Research Space (CDRS) at UTM. She now works in a similar leadership capacity as the director of the tri-campus Digital Humanities Network and the faculty head for an Institutional Strategic Initiatives proposal on critical digital humanities.

Prior to her arrival at UTM, Professor Brown earned her PhD from Yale's program in American Studies. She has since edited several essay collections and journal issues and written two major monographs: Work! A Queer History of Modeling (Duke University Press, 2019); and the award-winning The Corporate Eye: Photography and the Rationalization of American Commercial Culture, 1884-1929 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). She has won fellowships from the Getty Research Institute; the National Museum of American History; the American Council of Learned Societies; the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada; the Library of Congress Kluge Center; the American Philosophical Society, and elsewhere.

Professor Brown is also an active volunteer and Co-President of the Board at The ArQuives, Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives, the world’s largest queer and trans community archive. In 2018, in recognition of this work, she won an Ontario Volunteer Service Award. 

  • To hear more about her research, listen to VIEW to the U: Professor Brown was featured on the podcast in June 2020 in honour of Pride Month. 

In her new role as AVPR, Professor Brown will apply her academic and leadership expertise, providing strategic oversight for collaborative and interdisciplinary research initiatives at UTM. She will also facilitate new clusters of research excellence, building partnerships both within UTM and across U of T.

“I am thrilled to be appointed as AVPR and in this inaugural position,” says Professor Brown.  “I look forward to working with both the OVPR as well as UTM’s Principal Office, but also I welcome the opportunity to work with researchers at UTM and help build an even stronger research environment here and across UofT.”