Eddie F. Brown

Eddie F. Brown has administrative experience in state, federal, and tribal governments. He is the former director of Arizona Department of Economic Security (1987–1989); assistant secretary of Indian Affairs, United States Department of Interior, Washington, DC (1988–1993); and executive director of the Department of Human Services, Tohono O’odham Nation (1993–1996). In November 2013, he was appointed by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder as a member of a new task force to examine the impact of exposure to violence on American Indian and Alaska Native children. He is Yaqui and Tohono O’odham and is an enrolled member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe.

Before his retirement from Arizona State University, he was professor/director of American Indian Studies and co-executive director of the American Indian Policy Institute. He also served as a member of the United States president’s board of advisors on Tribal Colleges and Universities. He served as director of the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

Brown is an Indigenous social work scholar and policy advocate whose work has made a lasting impact on American Indian culture. Much of his career focus has been on improving conditions for Native American families and children through programs that focus on employment, elderly populations, self-determination, and parenting classes for American Indians who grew up in an age when Native American children were sent away to school.

Brown received his Bachelor of Science degree from Brigham Young University (1970) and his master’s (1972) and doctorate (1975) in social work from the University of Utah.

He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.