While at Berkeley, Brown was supported by a NASA Graduate Student Fellowship. Upon graduating, he was awarded an Enrico Fermi Fellowship at the University of Chicago, where he worked in the ASC Center for Astrophysical Thermonuclear Flashes. In 2004, Brown moved to Michigan State University to join the Physics and Astronomy faculty, with a joint appointment in the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. He is affiliated with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, an NSF Physics Frontier Center.