Barbara Elaine Russell Brown (February 14, 1929 - January 7, 2019) was an American biologist and philanthropist.

Personal life

Brown was born Barbara Russell, on 14 February 1929 in Chicago; her parents were Jewish immigrants from Romania and Russia. She graduated from the University of Illinois with a bachelor's degree in economics. In 1953, she married Roger Brown; they went on to have six children together. She moved to Highland Park, IL shortly after marrying, where the couple purchased five acres of undeveloped orchard, woodland, and marsh within the suburb, later adding five more acres to accommodate their children and dogs. Barbara enriched her community by joining the Highland Park Library Board, serving the city's Environmental Commission, as a guide at the Heller Nature Center, and by volunteering at elementary schools and extracurriculars. For decades, she was the president of the North Shore Bird Club, and was an avid birder through the United States, Canada, Australia and Central America.

Careers

Brown's career began as an assistant to the zoologist

Philip Hershkovitz Philip Hershkovitz (12 October 1909 – 15 February 1997) was an American mammalogy, mammalogist. Born in Pittsburgh, he attended the Universities of Pittsburgh and Michigan and lived in South America collecting mammals. In 1947, he was appointed ...

. From 1974, she served the Women's Boards at the Chicago

Field Museum of Natural History The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...

for 47 years, moving to the

Chicago Botanic Garden The Chicago Botanic Garden is a living plant museum situated on nine islands in the Cook County Forest Preserves. It features 27 display gardens in four natural habitats: McDonald Woods, Dixon Prairie, Skokie River Corridor, and Lakes and Shore ...

in 2010. Her research at the Field Museum was concentrated on mammalogy, with an emphasis in New World species. Brown's research involved expeditions to the Cerrado savanna and to the Atlantic coastal forest of Brazil, and she authored an important treatise on marsupials. She was a skilled animal collector, with expertise in preparing specimens and setting traps.

Eponyms

Brown has had 4 new species named after her. These include: * '' Isothrix barbarabrownae'' - Barbara Brown's Brush-tailed Rat * ''Callicebus barbarabrownae'' - Barbara Brown's titi * ''Apomys brownorum'' - Mount Tapulao forest mouse *'' Vadaravis brownae'' - a Threskiornithidae-like fossil bird

Philanthropy

With her husband Roger Brown, she has philanthropically supported the Field Museum, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and the Chicago Botanic Garden. This endowment included the new post - the Barbara Brown Chair of Ornithology - who directs the Science Museum of Minnesota's new ornithology department.

References

1929 births 2019 deaths 20th-century American Jews American biologists American people of Russian-Jewish descent American people of Romanian-Jewish descent 20th-century American philanthropists University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni American expatriates in Brazil 21st-century American Jews {{biologist-stub