Martha June Brown

June M Brown 86, passed away on Friday April 30th. She was predeceased by her husband James Lauren Brown, the love of her life, and her parents, Bernice and James Myrick.

June graduated from the Academy of Richmond County, Augusta University, and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Georgia State University with a degree in Microbiology. She was a scientist at Center for Disease Control for over 50 years where she mentored dozens of young people. June published many scientific papers and travelled worldwide presenting her findings. She worked on Nocardia and received the Caveza Maya International Prize, the highest distinction conferred by the International Research Group on Pathogenic Actinomicetes for her discoveries.

June Brown began her career as a medical technologist at the University Hospital in Augusta, GA in 1954. She worked there for 4 years and then briefly at Talmadge Memorial Hospital before working as a bacteriologist at the Georgia State Health Department in Atlanta until 1964. June Joined the Mycology Unit at the CDC in 1964 as a Public Health Technologist under renowned mycologist Dr. Lucille Georg. Upon retirement in 1972, Dr. Georg handed over her newly established laboratory within the Division called the Actinomycete Identification Reference Laboratory to June. From there, June became a world-renowned expert in this group of bacteria. She welcomed undergraduate work study students and post docs and foreign visitors to her laboratory. Over her long career, she developed a wide circle of collaborators from many countries and much of her published work continues to be cited as bedrock in the field a decade after her official retirement (she continued as a volunteer in the laboratory for another 6 years).

June was a woman of science and art. She loved going thrift shopping or “junk’n” as she called it. She knew how to spot amazing works of art at thrift stores. She cleaned them up, researched them and brought them back to life in displays she created in her home. She saw value and beauty in objects that others saw as trash. June truly loved everyone around her.

June is survived by her son, Jay (Brandie) and granddaughter, Olivia Brown; step granddaughter, Brooke Morgan; her sisters, Joanne (Owen) Youles, Helen Brooks, and Laura (David) Jones, also surviving are her nieces and nephews, Kathryn Youles, Owen Youles, Charles (Betty) Youles, Jennifer (Tom) Dorn, Thomas (Jody) Brooks, Stephen (Adrianne) Brooks, Vanessa Brooks, and her great niece and nephews, Briggs (Bethany) Dorn, Garrett (Margaret) Dorn, Lydia Dorn, Christopher Griffis, Christian Brooks, Will Brooks, Shelby Youles and great-great niece, Brighton Dorn.

There will be a Celebration of June’s Life at a later date.