Vice President for Research This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
AB 720
(205) 934-1294

Christopher S. Brown is the Vice President for Research at UAB and a tenured professor in the Department of Biology. He received his BS degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his MS and PhD from North Carolina State University (NCSU). After a postdoctoral fellowship in biochemistry at the University of Missouri-Columbia and seven years running the space biology laboratories at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, he returned to NCSU where he took a faculty position in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology. There he directed the NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training (NSCORT) in Gravitational Biology, conducted research, and taught. Prior to arriving at UAB, he served as Associate Vice Chancellor for Research Development at NCSU and later as the Vice President for Research at the 16-campus University of North Carolina System.

For many years, Brown’s research focused on the effects of spaceflight – that is, altered gravity and lighting conditions - on plant growth, development, and metabolism. He led and/or participated in numerous projects on the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. He developed an in-person and on-line graduate/undergraduate course in Space Biology which he offered at the University of Central Florida and then at NCSU. Among his board and leadership activities are his service as the president of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology, chair of the National Space Grant Alliance, as a board member for Research Triangle International, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, the UNC Coastal Studies Institute and on the APLU COR Committee. He currently serves on the boards of Southern Research, the UAB Research Foundation, Innovation Depot, the Bent Creek Institute, the MS/AL Sea Grant Consortium, and the Alabama EPSCoR Steering Committee.

In his current position, Brown and his team work across the entire campus with stakeholders to broaden and enhance UAB’s nearly $700M research portfolio, strengthen research support operations, and raise the stature, visibility, and support of the UAB research enterprise nationally and internationally.