Katie Brown grew up in fabulous Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. She attended Park Center Senior High, home of the Pirates, a few gangs, and some Lutherans. She became interested in chemistry when during her junior year her chemistry class watched the homemade-explosives film “Kaboom!” whenever their teacher was gone for the day.

Katie graduated Summa Cum Laude from Cornell College in the exotic town of Mt. Vernon, Iowa, in 2006.  She earned her B.A. in Chemistry (ACS Certified) with a minor in music. There, she played the bassoon in the band and orchestra and played the double seconds in the college’s premier steel drum band, Pandemonium, under the stage name “The Verve Wench.”

She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is doing research for Dr. Dana D. Dlott in the physical chemistry department.