Samuel Brown graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in Linguistics with a minor in Russian, then received his MD from Harvard Medical School, where he was a National Scholar and Massachusetts Medical Society Scholar. He completed internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and pulmonary/critical care fellowship at the University of Utah. He is Research Professor at Intermountain Health and Professor of Medicine at the University of Utah, and cares for patients in the Shock Trauma ICU at Intermountain Medical Center.

Dr. Brown uses clinical trials and advanced statistical techniques to understand and improve patient-centered outcomes from life-threatening illness and injury. As Vice President for Research at Intermountain Health, he oversees and supports a large research enterprise that focuses on serving patients, communities, and clinicians through the use and understanding of both cutting-edge new treatments and treatments already in broad clinical use. On occasional free weekends, he studies cultural history, with a particular emphasis on questions of embodiment, sickness, and death. He has published widely in medicine, ethics, and history.