What key details about beth a. brown can be extracted from the following bio? Bio: beth a. brown -lrb- 1969 -- october 5 , 2008 -rrb- was a nasa astrophysicist . brown was born in roanoke , virginia in 1969 . she graduated from william fleming high school in 1987 as valedictorian . she studied astrophysics at howard university , graduating summa cum laude in 1991 . while at howard university , she played piccolo in several university bands . she joined tau beta sigma in fall 1990 . she earned her m.s. in astronomy from the university of michigan and a ph.d. from there in 1998 . she was the first african-american woman to earn a ph.d. from the university of michigan 's department of astronomy . her research there concerned x-ray observations of elliptical galaxies from the rontgen satellite . brown joined nasa 's goddard space flight center -lrb- gsfc -rrb- as a post-doctoral research associate with the national academy of sciences/national research council . she became a post-doctoral research associate for the national space science data center -lrb- nssdc -rrb- in 2001 . she transferred to the x-ray astrophysics laboratory in 2005 , providing support for the gsfc xmm guest observer facility . she was hired as assistant director for science communication and higher education for the sciences and exploration director at goddard . she also completed a nasa administrator fellowship where she devoted a year to research with dr. james lindesay and taught classes with dr. demetrius venable at howard 's department of physics and astronomy . brown served as the administrative executive officer for nsbp for two years and was involved with the national conference of black physics students -lrb- ncbps -rrb- . brown died from a pulmonary embolism on october 5 , 2008 .
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- known for is the the university of michigan 's department of astronomy first african-american woman to earn a ph.d. from- fields is astrophysics- death date is october 5 , 2008- workplaces is goddard center , howard university space flight center , national space science data- birth date is 1969- name is beth a. brown- nationality is american- birth place is roanoke , virginia- alma mater is howard m.s. in astronomy , ph.d. , 1998 university , 1991 ; university of michigan ,