In Memoriam: Dr. Elise Ann Brown

Elise Ann Brown, NIH, USDA scientist

Elise Ann Brown, 92, a research pharmacologist at the National Institutes of Health from 1962 to 1979 who then was a toxicologist with the Agriculture Department until her retirement in 2003, died Jan. 4 at her home in McLean, Va. The cause was metastatic pancreatic cancer, said her son Terrence Brown.

Dr. Brown was born Elise Ann Brandenburger in Jacksonville, Fla. In the 1970s, she filed a lawsuit against NIH alleging sex discrimination in pay and advancement; her son said she won back pay but decided to leave for the USDA soon afterward. She was a past chapter president of the Chemical Society of Washington (local chapter of the American Chemical Society).