Elspeth H. Brown is a Professor of History at the University of Toronto, where her research focuses on modern queer and trans history, oral history, queer archives, public history, the history and theory of photography, and the history of U.S. capitalism.

She currently serves as Director of the Collaboratory. From 2020 to 2024, she was Associate Vice-President, Research (Strategic Initiatives) at the University of Toronto Mississauga and Director of the university-wide Critical Digital Humanities Initiative.

Elspeth is the author of numerous publications, including Work! A Queer History of Modeling (Duke University Press, 2019); “Trans Oral History as Trans Care” (with Myrl Beam, Oral History Review, 2022); “Archival Activism, Symbolic Annihilation, and the LGBTQ+ Community Archive” (Archivaria, 2020); and Feeling Photography (co-editor with Thy Phu, Duke University Press, 2014).

From 2014 to 2021, she served on the Board of The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives, most recently as Co-President.