William Adams Brown, Ph.D. (Yale University, 1901; M.Div, Union Theological Seminary, 1890; A.M., Yale, 1886; A.B., Yale, 1886) was Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and served as acting president of Yale University 1919–1920. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1893, and served as chairman of the Presbyterian Church's Home Missions Committee, through which he organized and ran the American Parish on the Upper East Side and the Labor Temple in the East Village neighborhoods of Manhattan, New York.