Emery N. Brown ’74 Receives the Phillips Award
Emery Brown at work. Courtesy of The Exeter Bulletin
By Otto Do, Leela Gandhi, Lina Huang and Ashley Jiang
Neuroscientist, statistician, professor and anesthesiologist Emery N. Brown ’74 was awarded the John and Elizabeth Phillips Award last Friday. Reflecting on Exeter’s formative impact on his life, Brown came close to tears as he accepted the award on the virtual assembly stage.
With professorships at both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School, Brown is one of only 19 individuals elected to all three branches of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. He is also the first African American and the first anesthesiologist to be elected to all three National Academies. “New knowledge born from [his] brilliance and perseverance has benefited humankind,” the National Academies stated.
Brown is the 54th recipient of the John and Elizabeth Phillips Award, created in 1965 by the Trustees and General Alumni Association (GAA) to honor one graduate who embodies the founders’ ideal of knowledge and goodness.
According to peers in related fields, Brown fits the criteria in spades. “He is a paradigm shifter,” fellow anesthesiologist Elizabeth Nicholas ‘74 said. “When I first started training in anesthesia almost 35 years ago, there were no tools that were available to practically monitor the brain real-time during surgical anesthesia. Much of the research in anesthesiology was focused on keeping the heart and the brain and the lungs safe, and it was believed that, if [the] heart and lungs were safe, then the brain would just de facto also be safe. Emery came along and asked, ‘Why are we not monitoring the brain?’”
“He has transformed anesthesiology from a practice based on case studies and empirical guesswork into a precise, scientific discipline at the molecular level,” Ayush Noori ’20 said. “That’s revolutionary because he’s expanding the purview of the entire field from a simple mechanism which puts patients to sleep to regulating brain activity with precision.”
“The work that he does both within the field of anesthesiology and the applications to other fields reflect non sibi because anesthesia is a state of unawareness and the inability to feel pain, which makes possible life saving surgery,” Nicholas added. “As anesthesiologists, you’re with people at a very vulnerable time in their lives; you have someone’s life literally in your hands. Every day, you’re doing something substantial to help somebody, and none of that would be possible if we weren’t able to safely give patients medications that kept their organ systems functioning normally while in an unconscious state.”
Nicholas and Class of ’74 President Constance Hamilton Jameson emphasized Brown’s ability to bring disciplines together in his work. “[Emery] demonstrates the power of interdisciplinary thinking to address multiple forms of suffering . . . Dr. Brown’s scientific contributions are even profound enough to shed light on that which makes us most human — consciousness itself,” they said.
Brown, known as “Vitamin E,” smiles for his yearbook picture. Courtesy of Communications
In recognition of his remarkable work, the Class of 1974 also presented Brown and his wife, Virginia, with a crystal vase etched with the Exeter lion.
Brown came to the Academy his upper year after a “phenomenal” Exeter Summer experience. “My mother used to always tell me, ‘You’re doing well, but you really haven’t been tested.’ She would keep my feet on the ground,” he said at his induction to the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame.
At the Academy, Brown was known for his wide smile and great energy, for which he received his second name. Celebrating Brown at a Class of ’74 afterparty, Jameson said, “You earned the name ‘Vitamin E’—energy, excellence, extraordinary talent-adding spirit, speed and power to the team. We are delighted to share our Vitamin E with the world. You have made the world a better place.”
At Exeter, Brown pursued his passion for connection through Modern Languages. “You want to learn a language so that you can preserve your personality in the language,” Brown said. “That’s what I was trying to do—I want it to be the same Emery Brown in Spanish that I am in French, that I am in English.” The Academy’s financial support enabled Brown to travel to Barcelona to pursue his love for Spanish.
Best friend and classmate Joseph Hebl, J.D., M.D. ’74 explained how Brown’s attentiveness to people related to his love of language. “He wants to know people at their most basic fundamental level,” Hebl said. “He wants to understand that and to do so, he felt it incumbent upon him to learn their language.”
Brown’s love for people transcended beyond his study of language. “Well, we all know what Exeter is like in the winter. With the cold or the snow blowing around, you might say hello to someone quickly on the paths and slip past them into whatever building you were headed. With Emery, though, it was different—would be ‘How you doin’ Man?’ shouted from across the quad, which would connect and make you feel better,” Dallas Brown ‘74, a good friend and Assembly seatmate (alphabetical by class in those days), said. “Seems to me that Emery has been reaching out to people like that all his life—providing uplifting energy and influencing everyone around him for the better.”
At Exeter, Brown was also defined by his grace. “One classmate wrote me to say that at Exeter he actually hit Emery in the face with a volleyball in a game. 50 years later, he’s still saying how gracious Emery was in that moment,” Jameson said.” From that moment, he was not surprised that so many years later, Emery’s still such an amazing person.”
Ever-humble, Brown noted that his goodness came from his surroundings. “I would have never done a radio show and there’s no way I would have been performing poetry if I hadn’t gone to Exeter and certainly wouldn’t have been involved in a theater production,” he said. “With all the opportunities available at Exeter, I couldn’t help but be positive.”
Today, Brown lives out knowledge and goodness in both academic and scientific spheres. “Many things make Emery exceptional, but on the intellectual side, it would be his dedication to both science and medicine and to the welfare of the people he interacts with and takes care of,” collaborator Loren Frank said.
Jameson noted that Brown’s way of thinking is deeply rooted in the Exeter tradition. “Emery has the intellectual confidence to not take anything for granted, and to look at things in a new way,” Jameson said. “It’s kind of like an internal Harkness of your own brain to look at something from many angles, from sitting around the Harkness table and hearing all the different viewpoints.”
Sourish Chakravarty, Brown’s postdoctoral mentee, explained the long-term effects of Brown’s kindness, mentorship and teachings. “We all try to pick up his kindness, his way of analyzing and solving a scientific problem, his manner of communicating the solution to the scientific community, and emulate them,” Chakravarty said. “And I’ve seen his ‘Emery-ness’ percolated in his mentees who have gone on to become very successful professors and industry professionals. When ex-Brown lab members and current lab members get together, we talk about science and we talk fondly of Emery.”
“He provides the highest level of guidance and mentorship,” collaborator and former mentee Brian Edlow said. “Any time you present a new idea or hypothesis to him, he not only provides insightful feedback and helps you to refine your ideas, but will also identify how to test those ideas in as rigorous a way as possible.”
This stems from Brown’s personal mentoring philosophy. “I view a chance to work on a research problem as an opportunity to be creative,” Brown said. “What I try to do is give people problems I would want to solve myself.”
Brown’s ability to connect with others was evident even in the short time he spoke at Assembly. “To see this exceptional man show such emotional gratitude to his school was a reminder that our school can have huge impacts on the trajectories of people’s lives... It felt like a moment where our school could be proud,” Science Instructor Elizabeth Stevens said.
“This is a man who’s had tons of incredible awards, but he was still so touched by receiving an award from Exeter. That made me realize how much he had appreciated Exeter, which also made me appreciate Exeter more,” upper Alexandria Westray said. “His vulnerability also humanized him and helped me see him as a very real figure and not a figure who was worlds away from me.”
“A number of people at the alumni gathering cried at the Assembly, including me,” Nicholas said. “Why? Because it’s a beautiful thing to see a good person being recognized. We can also all identify with the emotion of, ‘This is what my school did for me that was fundamental to the person that I became.”
Brown’s work and mission are especially inspirational for many BIPOC students at the Assembly. “People at the top of STEM fields are predominantly white men, and it’s important for people to have someone who looks like them at the forefront of fields like these,” upper Tasmiah Akter said.
At the Assembly, Brown reflected on his time at Exeter and how he continues to carry Exeter with him. “I’m always wearing my Exeter cap,” Brown said in tears. “It’s always been a part of me, it’s helped me become who I am. By coming to Exeter, I realized that I could actually accomplish things—it wasn’t just dreaming about things; I wasn’t just a kid in Florida dreaming about things. It was now a kid in Florida who’s gone to Exeter, and Exeter has shown that dreams could come true.”
Brown explained his dedication to others is rooted in a sense of personal fulfillment. “The idea that you can do something and then patients are better off because of what you did. Nothing could be better. There’s no cooler field,” he said to the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame.
During the assembly, Brown said it was ironic that he was awarded the Academy’s greatest distinction, Nicholas recalled. “He is such a humble guy, because there is nothing further from the truth,” she said. “He represents the best of what an Exeter education is.”