Michelle Brown

Michelle Brown is a Ph.D. candidate in Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder, specializing in Language and Social Interaction. Using Critical Race Discourse Analysis, multimodal, and visual analyses, she investigates how displayed art in national museums shapes U.S. national narratives, with attention to how race, history, and identity are represented, organized, or erased. Her dissertation situates museums as pedagogical sites where meaning-making is structured through systems of display, classification, and interpretation. By examining how multimodal forms—visual, textual, and spatial—work together in exhibitions, her research highlights how museums reproduce national identity while simultaneously silencing or marginalizing racialized knowledge. She also explores how these displays participate in broader ideological projects, tracing how narratives of unity, heritage, or progress are deployed in ways that naturalize exclusion and erasure.

In addition to her research, Michelle teaches courses in interpersonal, intercultural, and discourse-focused communication, emphasizing critical approaches. She also works full-time in industry and is mom to a wonderful daughter.