our board

Dr April L. Brown, is a cofounder and the current Chief Operating Officer at the Marshallese Educational Initiative (MEI), a 501c3 nonprofit founded in Springdale, Arkansas in 2013.

April served as MEI’s founding executive director (2013-2016), and as MEI’s board president she helped bring in more than $2 million in grant funding for humanities-based and arts and culture projects, prevention of violence against women, the Marshallese Resource and Educational Center, and the COVID-19 Relief and Response Project. As COO, Brown coordinates MEI’s history and culture classes, serves as MEI’s primary grant writer and manager, and oversees various programs. 

She is also a professor of history at NorthWest Arkansas Community College, where she has worked since 2004. She received her PhD in history at the University of Arkansas in 2006 with a specialty in U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. Brown is currently working on a monograph about the Marshallese Diaspora in Arkansas.