College Directory

Home Address:
14 Averill Terrace
Waterville, ME 04901

P: 207-877-6675

Spouse/Partner: Mark Tappan

B.A. 1979 Ottawa University, Ottawa, KS--Psychology
Ed.D. 1989 Harvard University, Cambridge, MA--Human Development and Psychology

Lyn Mikel Brown, Ed.D., is Professor of Education and Human Development at Colby College in Maine. She writes extensively on the relational life of girls; the influences of race, class and gender on girls' lives; the impact of media, and girls' feelings of anger, self-knowledge, loss, hope, and desire.

See Dr. Brown's WordPress site for more information about her research, teaching and activism

Dr. Brown's acclaimed work on girls' social and psychological development has consistently broken new ground and challenged old perceptions. She is the co-author, with Carol Gilligan, of Meeting at the Crossroads: Women's Psychology and Girls' Development (Harvard University Press, 1992), a New York Times Notable Book of the Year that helped spark an international debate about the lives of girls and redefine our understanding of female development. The NYTimes called Meeting at the Crossroads "revolutionary." The Boston Globe said it "should sound a national alert to society that even our most privileged girls still pursue normal femininity at great risk to personal and civic health." Dr. Brown, a founding member of the Harvard Project on Women's Psychology and Girls' Development and co-creator of the nonprofit Hardy Girls Healthy Women (www.hghw.org), has written two other acclaimed books on girls' social and psychological development. Raising Their Voices: The Politics of Girls' Anger (Harvard University Press, 1998) and Girlfighting: Betrayal and Rejection Among Girls (New York University Press, 2003). The New York Times Book Review wrote of Raising Their Voices, "[S]ince a much-discussed study by the American Association of University Women" books have "lamented the evaporation of young girls' feistiness into hesitancy and self-doubt. This book is an attempt to provide an alternative prophecy, with hope that it will be fulfilled." Kirkus Review called the book "a rebuttal to the research and popular writing that shows young teenage girls as tuned-out and turned-off shadows of their lively, challenging preadolescent selves." Psychiatric Services calls Girlfighting "a serious and intelligent analysis of the cruelty and meanness involved in girls' relationships," and reviews tout it as "the smartest book on mean girls around." "When it comes to girls' issues, there aren't many people more expert than Lyn Mikel Brown," says Daughters magazine. Her latest books, Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers' Schemes, co-authored with Dr. Sharon Lamb, and Packaging Boyhood: Saving Our Sons From Slackers, Superheroes, and Other Media Stereotypes, co-authored with Dr. Sharon Lamb and Dr. Mark Tappan, address the impact of marketing to children and teach parents how to understand these influences, give them guidance on how to talk to their children about these negative images, and provide the tools to help girls and boys make positive choices about the way they are in the world. Packaging Girlhood received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly and a coveted Books For Better Life award. In 2010, with Hunter College and CUNY Professor of Social Welfare and Psychology, Dr. Deborah Tolman, Dr. Brown initiated the Sexualization Protest Action Resistance Knowledge (SPARK) Summit and movement (www.sparkmovement.org), a growing coalition of partners and thought leaders united in their determination to challenge the sexualization of girls and to work collectively to demand girls' rights to embodiment and to healthy sexuality. Dr. Brown earned her Ed.D. at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. She has been Henkels Visiting Lecturer at the University of Notre Dame, a recipient of the Maine Women?s Fund Sarah Orne Jewett Award, American Association of University Women Educational Foundation Scholar-in-Residence, and winner of a National Academy of Education Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship for encouraging healthy resistance in girls. Her intense study of girlfighting garnered a Henry A. Murray Research Center Radcliffe Postdoctoral Research Award and other research grants. Dr. Brown was a member of The American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Adolescent Girls, and consultant to the Ms. Foundation for Women's National Girls' Initiative. She is the Public Interest Chair for APA's Psychology of Women Division (35) and writes a column for The Feminist Psychologist on adolescent girls. She has also consulted for numerous film and television projects, including shows on PBS, and Fox Children's Network. Dr. Brown lives in Waterville, Maine with her partner Dr. Mark Tappan, daughter, Maya, and their two dogs, three cats, and one fish.

My research focuses on girls' psychological and social development in diverse contexts, girls' anger, girlfighting, and media and marketing to girls. Right now I am conducting a pre-post evaluation of a strength-based curriculum for middle school girls, From Adversaries to Allies: A Curriculum for Change, that I wrote with Dr. Mary Madden. My research and activism are intimately entwined and I am currently writing about SPARK, a girl-fueled movement to push back on media sexualization, that I co-founded with with Dr. Deborah Tolman.