As a tenured professor at the University of Hawai‘i with an academic interest in the global aging phenomenon, Dr. Browne’s research, teaching and advocacy centers on promoting the well-being of older adults through the advancement and protection of personal and societal rights and responsibilities. Her research has focused on the social determinants of health among midlife and elder populations, gender and racial/ethnic vulnerabilities across the lifespan, and the need for a sustainable long-term care-financing program for Hawai‘i and the nation. She taught courses on social policy and gerontology and served in multiple leadership roles on both the campus and in the community. Dr. Browne’s extensive scholarship in Native Hawaiian elder health, racial/ethnic disparities in aging, and gender inequality across the life course published in professional journals, other papers, and presented at national and international conferences has contributed to the fields of gerontology, social work, public health, and related academic areas. Aided by Presidential and Gubernatorial appointments, she continues to work closely with program administrators in aging services, provide federal and state testimonies on policies and programs, and add to the knowledge base with relevant studies on older adults. Her contributions earned national recognition with awards from the Gerontological Society of America/Association for Gerontology in Higher Education for scholarly research, the American Society on Aging for excellence in multicultural programming, and in Hawai‘i from the Hawai‘i Pacific Gerontological Society for Research and the National Association of Social Workers-Hawai‘i for community service and gerontology. The University of Hawai‘i at Manoa presented her with the Board of Regents Excellence in Teaching Award in 1996 and the Robert Clopton Community Service Award in 2016. The Colette V. Browne Papers comprises six series: University Activities, Professional Activities, Publications, Addresses and Presentations, Media Coverage, and Images. Spanning the 1980s to 2020s, this collection documents her professional life as an educator, scholar and community advocate and volunteer in social work and public health practice with older adults, aging women, and marginalized elders. It illustrates the importance of knowledge and advocacy for older adults but with special focus on the nation’s most vulnerable populace. Dr. Browne was raised in southern New Jersey and earned her BS from Monmouth University. She continued her education at the University of Massachusetts earning a master’s in educational psychology. She worked as a social worker/counselor at the Salvation Army’s Women Rehabilitation program, Ke Ola Hou (A New Life) in Honolulu and the Middlesex County Hospital outside of Boston. During her time with the Ke Ola Hou program, she became sensitized to the plight of poor and mentally ill girls and women and developed and implemented a gender-responsive educational program for independent living. As a social worker at Middlesex County Hospital, she worked primarily with frail and vulnerable elders, and saw first-hand the effects of inadequate funding and care. In her volunteer work with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, she provided counseling to sexual assault victims and families, advocated for improved hospital procedures, and conducted sexual assault training programs with police departments. Her work experiences led to her return to Hawai‘i to continue her graduate education in the fields of social work and public health with a specialization in gerontology. Upon graduation, Kuakini Medical Center offered her the new position of Director at Geriatric Services whereby she led the development and testing of geriatric programs in Hale Pulama Mau (House of Cherishing Care) in the early 1980s. In 1983, she taught her first class at the University of Hawai‘i Manoa as a lecturer in the School of Social Work (SSW). In 1985, Dr. Jeanette Takamura, then an associate professor at the SSW, invited Dr. Browne to work with her on two gerontology grants funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). She taught numerous courses at the School while also completing her doctoral studies in Public Health, where she earned her degree in 1990. She was offered and accepted a tenured assistant professorship which she began in August 1990. In 1994 she was promoted with tenure and in 2001 and promoted to full Professor. Among her many noteworthy accomplishments as a faculty member at the SSW were the development and chair of the State and Pacific Basin’s only graduate gerontology training program for social workers, Principal investigator for Ha Kupuna National Resource Center for Native Hawaiian elders, one of three federally funded research centers to benefit the lives of Native elders, Director of the Center on Aging, Chair of the Department of Social Work, and Appointment as the School’s first Takasaki Endowed Professor in Social Policy. As Principal Investigator of Ha Kupuna, National Resource Center for Native Hawaiian Elders, she worked with its research team studying topics such as cultural competence and health, dementia, longevity, caregiving, and indigenous research methods. Collaborations with the National Resource Center for Native American Elders and the Alaska Native Elder Resource Center further highlighted work on the social and health disparities of indigenous elders through collaborative program development, research and scholarship. As the first Takasaki Endowed Professor in Social Policy, her work focused on the documentation of economic inequalities faced by older adults. She engaged the Institute for Women's Policy Research in Washington DC in a study in Hawai‘i that examined poverty among older adults in Hawai‘i, disaggregated by age, race and gender and collaborated with faculty from Columbia University in the testing of a model curriculum for women’s empowerment in Japan,. Dr. Browne continues working with faculty and students on the promotion of financial security for women and ethnic minority populations across the life course. As a community educator and advocate, Dr. Browne has served in numerous leadership roles in the State. She was one of the founders of the Hawai‘i Pacific Gerontological Society and one of its first elected presidents, Chair of the Senior Companion Program Board, DHHS, and Vice Chair of the Oahu Regional Health Care Board. At the National level, she served as grant and program reviewer for the Administration on Aging and the National Institute on Health, on the Board of the American Society on Aging, the, National Native Indigenous Elder Justice Initiative at University of North Dakota, and Editorial Boards of many professional journals. In Hawai‘i, she was the youngest Gubernatorial appointee (Governor George Ariyoshi) to the State’s Policy Advisory Board for Elderly Affairs (PABEA) in 1988 and was subsequently re-appointed by three Governors. In 1998, she was appointed by President William J. Clinton to serve on the President’s Retirement Initiative.