Cati Brown obtained her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Georgia and received her BA from Agnes Scott College. Her graduate research focused on
computational approaches to detecting deception using tobacco industry documents. With UCSF, Brown is looking forward to continuing research on the language of deception and corporate malfeasance. Other research interests include: lung cancer stigma, diffusion of smoking/anti-smoking marketing messages, low income women as a tobacco industry target, and the marginalization of smokers.
Post-PhD, Brown moved to the Bay Area to continue work in computational approaches to document categorization at various search technology start-ups. Brown transitioned into research consulting in the social sector in 2008 and has spent the past two and a half years evaluating the outcomes and impact of non-profit organizations throughout the Western United States.
Brown uses the following methodologies to investigate language, perception and the tobacco industry documents: discourse analysis, Critical Discourse Analysis, corpus linguistic approaches, semantic network analysis.
