Aaron Brown

Aaron Brown, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering/Engineering Technology at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His areas of expertise include humanitarian engineering and international education. Brown currently teaches Materials of Engineering, Materials Science, Life Cycles, and System Engineering and oversees internships.

Prior to joining MSU Denver, he worked in the aerospace industry. Brown was a mechanical engineer for Starsys Research and Ball Aerospace. During his time at Starsys Research, Brown contributed design work on the landing mechanism for the Mars Science Laboratory Rover Mission, a.k.a. Curiosity. He has also worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology designing test equipment to measure stress-strain relationships to superconductor performance. Brown has been awarded the College of Professional Studies Outstanding Service Award and the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Leadership Award from MSU Denver. A recent project of his aims to build resilience in a local community through the installation of solar furnaces he and his students designed. This project helps low-income families reduce their energy bills and is a collaborative effort with an established nongovernmental organization focused on improving the lives and health of people in a west Denver neighborhood.

Brown co-authored “Quantitative Assessment of Appropriate Technology,” which was published in Procedia Engineering. His current research interests include electric-vehicle optimization and design, robotics, and harvesting solar energy, green energy, and humanitarian engineering.

Brown received his doctorate in Civil Systems Engineering and a master’s in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 2015 and 2004, respectively, and a bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from California State University-Chico in 2001.