Michael Brown didn't set out to study channeling. An anthropology and Latin American studies professor at Williams College, he was living in Santa Fe temporarily and working on a book about a Peruvian guerrilla movement when he became interested in some drumming from his next door neighbors. Assuming that was an American Indian ceremony, he wanted to learn more. Eventually, he spent five years of research where he tried to make sense of channeling "in an anthropological sense." That research eventually became his book, "The Channeling Zone". Brown said the experiences he underwent in his research didn't change his own beliefs. In 2014, Brown was named president of the School for Advanced Research, after shifting into emeritus status as Lambert Professor of Anthropology and Latin American studies at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.