Professor Maria Brown on A Defiant Journey

Professor Maria Brown joins us on this week’s episode of the podcast. Dr. Brown has a PhD from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, and she wrote her dissertation entitled, “Psychiatric history and cognition trajectories in later life: variations by sex, race and ethnicity, and childhood disadvantage.” You will find out from Maria that her upbringing was anything but normal, and she had to deal with mental illness in her family, poverty, and other challenges that made her a unique case coming out of high school and at Ithaca College. Fortunately, Maria was willing to share her story, the challenges she’s faced, and how she’s risen above some of those challenges.

In this episode, they discuss what her childhood was like (5:40), what her day to day was like with her mom’s illness (7:00), what her siblings were like (8:25), the values her parents passed down to her (9:50), how religion played a role in her life (13:40), if she was surrounded by poverty (15:20), how her upbringing impacted how she saw the world (16:40), when alcoholism and depression showed up in her life (23:05), how it felt when she experienced her failure freshmen year (24:50), what inside of her allowed her to keep going (30:00), why the school of management (33:40), her thoughts on business ethics (37:30), her thoughts on the corporate world (40:10), when she decided to go back to her sociology roots (43:20), if sexuality was always clear for her (46:40), how her friend passing away impacted her (51:10), what allowed her to get help and what about it was helpful for her (52:40), her perspective on battling breast cancer while pursuing her academic achievements (55:00), what it’s been like to be a professor (58:40), why she’s drawn to adverse experiences she’s had (1:05:05), her research and what she’s drawn to (1:06:20), what she hopes comes from her research (1:09:50), and what she hopes to do in the next 5-10 years (1:13:00)

Thank you to Dr. Maria Brown for coming on the podcast. You can find information about the work she’s doing on their Facebook page, Genesis Health Project Network and there is also a website. She also has a Facebook page called Caregiver Matters of CNY which links directly to her YouTube which is the same title. She also has a faculty website at the Faulk College at Syracuse University where you can find out more about her work.

Lastly, if you liked this episode and/or any others, please support us at Patreon or follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

-Brian