Founded in 1764, Brown University was known as Rhode Island College until 1804. Now Brown enrolls nearly 8,000 students across the undergraduate, and graduate schools.

Degree programs include:

• Computer Science - Brown's offers one of the top-ranked computer science programs in the country (see Nexus profile)
• Applied Mathematics-Computer Science
• Computer Science-Economics
• Mathematics-Computer Science
• Computational Biology
• Commerce, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship (COE)
• Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship Engineering (PRIME)

Located in close proximity to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), RISD and Brown offer joint courses and the option to cross-register between schools. Recently, a dual-degree program was created.

In 2005, Brown's 658-member faculty body attracted $144 million in research funding from government and private sources. Brown itself supports research with seed funding provided through the Office of the Vice President for Research.

Information technology-related centers at Brown University include:

• Center for Computational Molecular Biology - created in 2003
• Shape Lab - Center for use of computers and computer vision in archaeology research
• Center for Digital Initiatives - a Brown Library effort to promote digital scholarship

In addition, Brown supports technology and enterprise through the Brown Forum for Enterprise (BFE) and the Brown Technology Partnerships (BTP).

The Office of Brown Technology Partnerships is charged with managing the patenting and commercialization of intellectual property generated by members of the Brown Community via partnerships with industry or via the creation of start-up ventures.

Local tech-related companies supported by Brown research or partnerships include:

• Analytical Edge
• Axon Sleep Labs
• IAM Technology
• Sound View Systems

Brown encourages women to pursue the sciences through the Women in Science and Engineering WiSE) group with subgroups like Women in Computer Science WiCS.

Brown's Brain Science Program is an interdisciplinary program designed to promote theoretical and experimental research on the workings of the brain. It includes more than 90 faculty and hundreds of students across 11 departments including Computer Science and Engineering.

Brown's electronic writing community has their own wiki.

Brown's Graduate Program in Literary Arts has earned recognition as an international leader in the field of electronic writing. Today, electronic writing is part of the trans-departmental digital arts development at Brown involving Literary Arts, Music, Visual Art, Modern Culture and Media, Computer Science, and other departments... Most electronic writing workshops and labs take place in the specially designed Multimedia Labs located in the Graduate Center and List Art Center. A new experimental workshop, “Cave Writing,” has been launched in Brown’s immersive virtual reality environment.

The Brown Music Department also explores technology with the interdisciplinary meme@brown (Multimedia & Electronic Music Experiments @ Brown).

...students and faculty collaborate on artistic and research projects, exploring new art forms that combine digital music and sound with performance, installation, human-computer interaction, video processing, text, and/or images. meme@brown actively promotes research, publications, and new technology in the fields of real-time sound synthesis and composition, real-time video, video tracking, digital signal processing, human-computer interaction, computer interface devices, and haptic/tactile feedback devices.

Technology or business related campus organizations include:

• Technology House
• Brown Entrepreneurship Program
• Brown Internet Programming Group
• Student Technology Assistants
• Scholarly Technology Group