Lauren E. Brown

Lauren Brown, PhD, MPSH, is the Strategic Account Executive who supports the strategy and growth of RTI’s work with the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Brown leads business development and client relations in collaboration with research staff for NIH, including the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. She is responsible for understanding client needs, building strategic partnerships, and connecting client challenges to RTI’s capabilities.

Dr. Brown has 6 years of experience leading digital health-centered research programs, previously serving as the Sr. Director of Program Design, Evaluation and Research at Scene Health, a small business public health technology start-up in Baltimore, MD. In this role, she partnered with clinician researchers at academic medical centers to develop research projects for the NIH Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) program across multiple institutes to design, deliver, and evaluate smartphone video-based medication adherence programs and their implementation. The targets of these interventions include solid organ transplant, sickle cell disease, substance use disorder (SUDs), asthma, diabetes, hypertension, Hepatitis C, and tuberculosis use cases. She was also responsible for standing up the first digital adherence review service offering and implementations for the biopharmaceutical clinical trial sponsor market, including developing and driving the associated product roadmaps for hybrid and decentralized trials.

Prior to her work in digital health, Dr. Brown spent 3 years in business development at FHI 360, leading proposal development for public health research and programs for a variety of funders, including NIH, United States Agency for International Development, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, The Gates Foundation, Global Fund, and others in the areas of family planning, reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment. Her early career was focused on program leadership and administration of an NIH and National Cancer Institute Specialized Program of Research Excellence in ovarian cancer early detection.

Dr. Brown’s research foci have also included digital health, medication adherence, maternal and child health systems improvement, community health workers, stated preference methods, qualitative and mixed methods approaches, women’s health, clinical translational research, and early detection of ovarian and breast cancer. Dr. Brown has advised the Federal Drug Administration on digital product development strategies for low resource settings. She has variously consulted Catholic Relief Services and the World Health Organization. Her country experience includes the USA, Tanzania, Kenya, Switzerland, South Africa, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, and China. Dr. Brown’s research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as PLoS ONE and Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research.