Ticasuk Brown

Emily Ticasuk Ivanoff Brown (1904–1982) was an Iñupiaq educator, author, and poet. She was named Woman of the Year by the National Federation of Press Women in 1974. Her paternal grandfather was Russian, named Sergei Ivanoff, and her paternal grandmother was Yup'ik, named Chikuk. Her mother’s parents were both Iñupiaq. Brown's parents were Stephen Ivanoff and Malquay. She attended elementary school in Shaktoolik, Alaska, which was a village co-founded by her father. At the age of nine she was taken by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Chemawa Indian Boarding School in Salem, Oregon. She remained there for ten years, unable to return to Alaska due to distance. While there she earned her high school diploma and a teaching certificate. It was reprinted in 2024 by Propeller Books with a new foreword about her life written by her granddaughter, Elaine Chukan Brown. Ticasuk Brown created a curriculum around the Inupiaq language and was one of the first educators in Alaska to do so Ticasuk Brown Elementary School was the first school in Fairbanks, Alaska to be named after a Native American person. The school opened in September 1987. The name was chosen out of 43 submissions in a quest to name the school.