J. Noah Brown is an American academic. He is a senior advisor for the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education at the U.S. Department of Education and is the former president and chief executive officer of the Association of Community College Trustees. Brown has been featured by a number of major national press outlets, including Parade magazine's "Intelligence Report." In 2011, Brown was asked by the Rowman & Littlefield publishing company to author a book about the past, present, and future of community colleges. Brown's book, First in the World: Community Colleges and America's Future, was published in October 2012. The book was awarded the 2013 Bellwether Book Award by the Community College Futures Assembly in Orlando, Florida on January 29, 2013.