She is known for her work on sport in China, the Olympic Games, World's Fairs, and the anthropology of the body and gender.
Brownell's childhood was spent in Virginia where she competed in track and field for Lexington High School.
[6] As a graduate student, Brownell went to China to study Chinese at Peking University in 1985, where she joined the track team and was selected to represent Beijing City in the 1986 National College Games.
Brownell's great-grandfather, Earl Leroy Brewer, was governor of Mississippi (1912-1916) and the lead attorney on two lawsuits on behalf of children of Chinese immigrants denied entry to White schools in the 1920s that were appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Gong Lum v. Rice (1927)[7] and Joe Tin Lun v. Bond (1929).
Some of her work focuses on the body in culture and society; medical anthropology; gender and sexuality; plastic surgery; beauty pageants; and world's fairs.