Brené Brown


Casandra Brené Brown PhD, LMSW is an American professor, lecturer, author, and podcast host. Brown holds the Brené Brown Endowed Chair at the University of Houston's Graduate College of Social Work and is a visiting professor in management at McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.
Having spent her career studying the concepts of courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy and having authored seven books including five New York Times best-sellers, Brown hosts the Unlocking Us podcast, and her TED talk, "The Power of Vulnerability", has been widely viewed. Her filmed lecture, , debuted on Netflix in 2019.

Early life and education

Casandra Brené Brown was born in 1965 in San Antonio, Texas, where her parents, Charles Arthur Brown and Casandra Deanne Rogers, baptized her in the Episcopal church. When her family moved to New Orleans, they brought her up as a Catholic. She left the church for two decades and later returned to it with her husband, Steve Alley, and their two children. The family now lives in Houston. She completed a BSW at the University of Texas at Austin in 1995, followed by a MSW in 1996 and a PhD in social work at the University of Houston in 2002.

Career

Brown has spent her research career as a professor at her alma mater, the University of Houston's Graduate College of Social Work. With research focused on the themes of authentic leadership and wholeheartedness in families, schools, and organizations, she has presented a 2012 TED talk and two 2010 TEDx talks. In March 2013, she talked with Oprah Winfrey on Super Soul Sunday about her book, Daring Greatly. Brown says she drew the title of that book from a 1910 Theodore Roosevelt speech "Citizenship in a Republic", given at the Sorbonne. Brown is CEO of “The Daring Way,” a professional training and certification program on the topics of vulnerability, courage, shame, and empathy.

Published works

In 2009 Houston Woman Magazine voted Brown one of the city's most influential women. She has also received teaching awards, including the Graduate College of Social Work's Outstanding Faculty Award. In 2016 the Huffington Foundation pledged $2 million over four years to endow a research chair in her name at the Graduate College of Social Work, where she guides the training of social work students in grounded theory methodology and in her research into vulnerability, courage, shame, and empathy.