President
NANCY GUNDEL BROWN, MN & CNS
Los Angeles, CA
Nancy is a first generation American, born in New York City and raised in New Jersey, and is of German-Jewish heritage .Nancy is a clinical nurse specialist in mental health, having received her B.S. in nursing from Boston University in 1975, and her M.S. in Psychiatric Nursing/Community Consultation from UCLA in 1980. She has worked in a variety of hospital and community settings with adults, families, and children, and has taught nursing on the college and baccalaureate levels. She presently works as a psychotherapist with the Kaiser Department of Psychiatry in West Los Angeles.
Nancy is a partner in an interracial marriage since 1977 and has two multiracial daughters. Her husband is African American, born in Texas. This was a major impetus for the fact that she co-founded and became president of Multiracial Americans of Southern California (M.A.S.C.), a nonprofit organization in 1987. She remained president for seven years. She has been a major spokesperson for the organization as well as a frequent guest speaker in schools, colleges, professional and national mixed race student conferences, on radio and television shows on the issues that impact multiracial individuals and families. She has been quoted frequently in newspaper articles and magazines on the topics. Nancy also represented MASC as a founding member of the Association of MultiEthnic Americans (AMEA) our national organization, in 1988, and for many years thereafter. She held the position of Western Regional Vice-President since 1994. She was elected President of AMEA in May, 2001, and under her leadership AMEA held their first National Conference on the Multiracial Child in October, 2002.
Nancy has been a co-author in two books; The Multiracial Experience by Maria P.P. Root (1996) and New Faces in a Changing America Edited by Loretta Winters and Herman DeBose (2003) .Nancy has been successful in bringing the information about the multiracial population and related issues into professional medical and mental health arenas where this information has been absent and rarely discussed. Under her tenure as AMEAís President, Nancy has also created the first national collaboration project along with The MAVIN Foundation to establish The National Resource Center for the Multiethnic, Multiracial and Transracial Adoption Community.
