Title: The Origin of Brown Dwarfs

Abstract: The origin of brown dwarfs is a mystery because standard theories of star formation cannot easily create objects at such low masses. I will review the current state of observational and theoretical work on understanding how brown dwarfs form. I will first describe the latest measurements of various properties of brown dwarfs, including their initial mass function, binarity, circumstellar environment (disks, accretion, envelopes), and spatial and velocity distributions at birth, and I will then compare these data to the predictions of theories for the formation of brown dwarfs.