Susan Brownell

Susan Brownell is a Curator's Distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She is known for her work on sport in China, the Olympic Games, World's Fairs, and the anthropology of the body and gender.

Early life and education Brownell's childhood was spent in Virginia where she competed in track and field for Lexington High School. She attended the University of Virginia on an athletic scholarship, specializing in the pentathlon and heptathlon. From 1980 to 1982, she placed in the top three in the Collegiate (AIAW) indoor pentathlon championships and the top six in the Collegiate (AIAW and NCAA) outdoor pentathlon and heptathlon championships and was a multiple All-American. She competed in the U.S. Track and Field Olympic Trials in 1980 and 1984, placing seventh in 1980. In 1982 she received her B.A. from the University of Virginia.

As a graduate student, Brownell went to China to study Chinese at Peking University in 1985, where she joined the track team and was selected to represent Beijing City in the 1986 National College Games. After visiting assistant professorships at Middlebury College, the University of Washington, and Yale University, Brownell joined the University of Missouri–St. Louis in 1994.

Selected publications

Awards and honors In 2015, she won the University of Missouri St. Louis's Chancellor's Award for Research and Creativity.