Stephanie Brown

At Johns Hopkins, Stephanie Brown is Assistant Program Director and senior lecturer for the MA in Museum Studies program.

Brown manages the Museum Studies and Cultural Heritage internship program, collaborating with museums, libraries, and cultural heritage organizations around the country and internationally to create and foster rewarding opportunities for AAP students. She teaches a range of museum studies courses, including Curatorship: Principles and Practices, Exploring Museum Professions, Internships, and Material Culture and the Modern Museum. Working with students is central to her practice, and she relishes building professional relationships with program students and alumni.

Brown is the author of The Case of the Disappearing Gauguin: A Study in Authenticity and the Art Market (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024), which traces the unlikely history of a still life formerly attributed to post-Impressionist Paul Gauguin—and explores what we mean by authenticity and who gets to define it. She regularly works with the Haggin Museum in Stockton, Calif., as guest curator. Dr. Brown’s academic interests include the art market, catalogues raisonnés, and late 19th-century French funeral practices.

Brown has worked in and around museums for 25 years. Her museum work has ranged from designing and implementing collections plans, to curating exhibitions, to institutional strategic planning. She served as executive director of the Chevy Chase Historical Society in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and associate curator for American Material Culture and Historian at Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens in Washington, D.C. She regularly participates in local, regional, and national museum conferences. Brown is the former co-chair the American Alliance of Museums’ Museum Studies Network. Her museum interests include the history of museums, collecting and collectors, storytelling with objects, and broadening the stories we tell and communities we serve.

Brown earned a BA in History from Williams College and a PhD in European history from Stanford University.