Robert Brown, D.Phil., M.D. is the LaChance Family Chair of Neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) where he also serves as Director of the ALS Clinic, Co-Director of the Laboratory for ALS Genetics and Co-Director of the Neurotherapeutics Institute.

Dr. Brown is originally from Massachusetts.  He completed a B.A. in Biophysics (Amherst College, 1969), a D.Phil. in Neurophysiology (Oxford, 1973) and an M.D. (Harvard, 1975).  After completing a neurology residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School (1980) and a research fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital (1983), he joined the faculty at the Massachusetts General Hospital.  At the MGH, he established and directed the Day Neuromuscular Research Laboratory and co-directed the Neuromuscular Clinic.  In 1983 he began studies of the genetics of ALS and related disorders, jointly with colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and several universities outside of Boston.  In 1998, he was awarded tenure as Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School.   In 2008, he became the chair of neurology at UMMS.