Lisa Brown

Lisa Brown assumed office as the mayor of Spokane, Washington, on January 1, 2024. She is a former state legislator and former chancellor of Washington State University, Spokane.

Brown was born October 9, 1956, in Robison, Illinois. She received a Bachelor of Arts in sociology and economics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a Masters of Arts and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She was an associate professor of economics at Eastern Washington University from 1981 to 2001, serving as the interim director of the university's women's center in 1983, and an associate professor in organizational leadership at Gonzaga University from 2001 to 2012.

Brown served in the Washington State House of Representatives from 1993 to 1997 and the State Senate from 1997 to 2013. In the state Senate, she served as the majority leader from 2005 to 2013, the first woman to hold that position in the Washington Senate. Brown became the chancellor of Washington State University Spokane in 2013, resigning in 2017 to run for the U.S. House of Representatives. Brown was the 2018 Democratic nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives for Washington state's 5th Congressional District, losing to incumbent Cathy McMorris Rodgers.