Dr Cornelia Brown Biography

Cornelia E. Brown, Ph.D. is the former founder and Executive Director of the Multicultural Association of Medical Interpreters of Central New York 1998-2019. “MAMI” was an independent, non-profit organization, the first in Upstate NY to train and dispatch skilled community interpreters, Syracuse to Albany. Dr. Brown was a founding member of the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care. The Council gave MAMI invaluable advice and a nationally respected partner. MAMI advocated for the civil rights of Limited English proficient refugees and immigrants at a time when using friends and family, often children, to interpret was the norm.

MAMI designed courses on interpreting for medical patients, legal clients, and survivors of Domestic Violence. In 2000, MAMI won the Oneida Country Small Business of the Year Award. In 2008, the NYS DOH selected MAMI to establish state interpreting standards. Education: Dr. Brown received a B.A from Stanford University and an M.A and Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley in Comparative Literature (1988). She served as a Russian translator at the NY City law firm Chadbourne & Parke during glasnost.

Before and after MAMI, Dr. Brown taught at Utica University and Hamilton College and is currently a Research Associate at Utica University. There, her research focuses on the intersection of ethics, journalism, and Judaism.