Brandon Brown, MPH, PhD

Brandon Brown (he, him, his) is Professor in the University of California, Riverside (UCR) School of Medicine, where he teaches public health and biomedical ethics, mentors students, leads the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (CAMP) program, and conducts community based participatory research on HIV. Brandon is particularly interested in decision making for payment to participants in research, and recently worked to update the international HIV prevention research ethics guidelines.  With over 200 publications, Brandon has received funding from several federal and private organizations, working closely with community partners in all research. Brandon is chair of the board of directors of TruEvolution, which fights for health equity and justice to advance the quality of life and human dignity of LGBTQ+ people. He is also on the board of STEMM Prep Academy.

Brandon is a firstgen Scholar who earned their bachelor's degree in applied mathematics from the University of California, Irvine. During that time, they received support as a CAMP and Ronald E. McNair Scholar, and studied abroad in Singapore. After graduation, they received their MPH in epidemiology from UCLA. They then attended the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to earn their PhD in international health with a focus on epidemiology, then conducted postdoctoral work in global health back at UCLA. They received additional training through the UCLA RCMAR CHIME program, as a HPTN Scholar, at the Fordham HIV Research Ethics Training Institute, and the Hastings Center for Bioethics. Brandon recently completed a 3-year tenure as an Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine with the National Academy of Medicine. In 2025 they were elected as a Fellow of the Hastings Center for Bioethics, the first from UC Riverside, and one of just 8 UC Fellows elected since 1969, with 3 in the past 20 years. 

Brandon spends their free time with family working in their citrus grove, and writing about experiences in academia to enhance transparency of what's involved in being a scientist for firstgen scholars.

Cohort

2018-19

Projects

• “Differences in age and ethnicity in HIV testing and perceptions of HIV risk in the Coachella Valley.” Dr. Brown’s RCMAR/CHIME- and UCLA CTSI-funded secondary-data analysis project seeks to explore differences in self-reported HIV risk and willingness to get tested by participants in the 2014 Get Tested Coachella Valley (GTCV) Community Survey. Differences in HIV testing and testing perceptions by age and ethnicity will inform culturally competent interventions to promote HIV testing among Latinos and older minority adults. We will characterize differences in HIV testing history, perceived HIV self-risk, and perceptions of HIV testing among older adults compared to younger adults, explore the effect of income, health status, location, and gender of partner on HIV testing related practices and perceptions, identify differences in HIV testing history, perceived HIV self-risk, and perceptions of HIV testing by ethnicity (Latinos and African Americans vs Whites), and explore the effect of income, health status, location, and gender of partner on HIV testing related practices and perceptions.