As a historian of science, Brown contributed seven biographical profiles of African American chemists to the African American National Biography Project, of which contained the first African American women to get their Ph.Ds degrees in chemistry and chemical engineering. She is the author of the 2011 book African American Women Chemists, which profiles early African American women in chemistry. Her second book African American Women Chemists in the Modern Era' focuses on contemporary women who have benefited from the Civil Rights Act and are now working as chemists or chemical engineers.