Brown completed a Bachelor's degree with Honours in English and History at
Victoria University of Wellington, a Bachelor's in Design from the
University of Canterbury and a Master's degree at Massey in 2012, with a thesis titled
The endless book - exploring the online, offline. Brown ran her own design business before joining the faculty of Massey University, rising to full professor in 2022. Brown is "interested in how conversations and community engagement can drive social change". Researchers at Toi Āria developed the 'Comfort Board' approach to participatory design decision-making. The methodology was used in research commissioned by the
Digital Council of Aotearoa, to assess how members of affected groups thought automated decision-making should be used in government processes. The research resulted in seven recommendations to government. == Selected works ==