Katherine Browne

Katherine E. Browne, PhD, University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Colorado State University. In 2018, Browne was awarded the highest honor in American anthropology, the Franz Boas Award for “extraordinary achievements in the field of anthropology.” In 2025, she was named Senior Scholar at School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Browne’s research explores foundational questions about how the pressures of adversity give rise to adaptations. Specifically, in settings of historical disadvantage and systemic racism, how and when do adaptations to these pressures make space for resilience? When is resilience not realistic? These questions require complex, whole-frame analyses that deconstruct intersecting roles of social histories, cultural identities, and political and economic forces. Such analyses inspired Browne to specialize in-depth, long-term ethnographic and archival research. In each of her research projects and sites, she has led studies funded by National Science Foundation including the French-colonized Caribbean, the French-colonized city of New Orleans after Katrina, and other post-disaster contexts impacted by Hurricane Harvey including Houston and other Gulf Coast communities. 

Browne used her years of research with Black communities to create a single-authored Expert Witness Report commissioned by the Oregon Law Center. The lawsuit involved Black plaintiffs forcibly displaced from Portland in the 1960s and 70s. Her 50-page report includes a “Framework for Identifying Social Harms of Displacement” that helped settle the case out of court in a historic, precedent-setting decision granting $10.5 million to plaintiffs. This rare applied anthropological work can be leveraged for other communities.