Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation-Brené Brown Endowed Chair at the Graduate College of Social Work. She is also a visiting professor in management at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business. Brown has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame and empathy, and is the author of five #1 New York Times bestsellers: The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, Braving the Wilderness and Dare to Lead, which is the culmination of a seven-year study on courage and leadership. With Tarana Burke, she co-edited the bestselling anthology You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience and the Black Experience. She hosts the Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead podcasts, and her TEDx talk, "The Power of Vulnerability", is one of the top five most-viewed TED talks in the world with more than 50 million views. Her Netflix special, The Call to Courage, is the first filmed lecture by a researcher on the streaming service. Brown lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, Steve. They have two children, Ellen and Charlie.