Philip Brown joined Trinity College in 1985 after a twenty-year career as an applied mathematician in industry.  In those years before coming to Trinity, he served as a senior research scientist and vice president at CEM, Inc., an organization established to advance research in the atmospheric sciences.  He retired from teaching in 2012.

In his first sixteen years at Trinity, he continued his work in the field of cloud physics through grants from the National Science Foundation and also taught courses in computer-related mathematics.  He eventually began teaching on a full-time basis and most recently taught courses in calculus and mathematical modeling.  He coordinated the Models and Data minor, and taught a first-year seminar on the weather.

After retiring from Trinity, he taught mathematical modeling courses in the Graduate Liberal Studies Program at Wesleyan University.