Brahm attended McGill University, Montreal, Quebec graduating with degrees in B. Arch (1948) and M.Arch-Planning (1950).

His professional career began in 1950 until 1967 holding planning positions at the City of Edmonton, Capital Region Planning Board of British Columbia and the City of Vancouver.

Brahm was working with the City of Vancouver Planning Department when his former classmate, Dr. Peter Oberlander, Director of SCARP invited him to deliver some guest lectures.  This foray into the academic world persuaded Brahm to join the faculty.  His academic appointments included Professor, Acting Director and Director for UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning Department (SCARP) during the period; 1967-1992 and Initial Director, UBC’s Centre for Human Settlements in China, Indonesia and Thailand from 1991-1992.

Under Brahms’s directorship, SCARP and UBC’s Centre for Human Settlements initiated their first major overseas development projects.  As a result, CHS was designated a Centre of Excellence by the Canadian International Development Agency in 1990.
Brahm and Peter began collaborative work in Vietnam, but it was China that became Brahm’s principal area of interest.  He spent many years travelling to China on a regular basis, consulting on planning projects.

He was elected to the College of Fellows in 1997. 

After Brahms’s passing in 2003, Madge, his wife established a scholarship in his memory which was a fitting tribute to the man whose insightful teaching had inspired so many other planners.  The Brahm Wiesman Memorial Scholarship in Community and Regional Planning at UBC was established in 2006 and supports graduate students carrying out research abroad.