BROOKE ELLISON MPP 2004 was a professor, policy advocate, author, and motivational speaker who was set to return to the Kennedy School this fall to become a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy—but this plan, and many more, were cut short in February when she passed away at age 45. Her death is a loss not only to her immediate circle of family, friends, colleagues, and classmates, but to the many individuals whom she inspired and fought for throughout her life.
When she was 11 years old, Ellison was hit by a car while walking to school. Months of rehabilitation later, she returned to eighth grade with a major disability—one that Ellison may later have described as a “feature”—as a person paralyzed from the neck down. As Ellison told vlog Magazine in 2017, “Immediately after my accident, I kind of seized on a sense of resolve that I did not want my life to end just because it seemed like it was going to be different than it had been. I was committed very early on to the idea that there was a role that I wanted to play and an impact that I wanted to have and I didn’t feel like I couldn’t do that just because I couldn’t move my body in the same way.”
Despite formidable physical barriers, Ellison excelled in her classes, going on to earn an AB in cognitive neuroscience at Harvard College followed by her MPP at the Kennedy School and a PhD in sociology at Stony Brook University, where she taught medical ethics and policy until her death.
Her determination to make a difference drove her not only in the classroom but also in the public arena. Over the years, she ran for the New York State Senate, formed a nonprofit that worked to promote embryonic stem cell research in the United States, and wrote two books, including a memoir that was later turned into a film. She also served with many organizations, including the Genetics Policy Institute, the National Organization on Disability, and the United Spinal Association, where as vice president of technology and innovation, she advocated for policies to increase access to inclusive and assistive technologies.
At Harvard, Ellison spearheaded the creation of the University’s Alumni Disability Alliance, a Shared Interest Group that elevates the accomplishments of alumni with disabilities and works toward a world where disability is appreciated for the value it provides to everybody. Her research into medical ethics informed this perspective. As she told the Harvard Alumni Association, “Questions around medical ethics have long been approached and understood from a medical model—that disability is a physical issue at the individual level. This has led to ableist biases that assume people with disabilities have a reduced quality of life compared with the rest of the population.” Ellison took a more holistic view, noting that because the allocation of resources deeply affects individual people, systemic changes are needed to make sure that questions such as who receives care are approached from the point of view of those with disabilities.
At the Kennedy School’s Carr Center, Ellison was planning to help build a program on disability rights. Mathias Risse, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights, Global Affairs and Philosophy, said in a letter posted on the center’s website after she passed, “Brooke’s academic work was at the intersection of ethics and policy of science and health care. Among other things, she taught classes illuminating how disability was both a physical reality but also very much a sociocultural construction, in the sense that what disabled people can do in life depends very much on how the world around them is designed.”
In the Harvard Alumni Association’s announcement of the new Harvard Alumni Disability Alliance, Ellison said, “Disability is something that needs to be appreciated and celebrated for the value it provides everybody. When we have a greater number of people with insightful and creative perspectives drafting policies, creating art, thinking about big questions, and solving problems, the world is fundamentally a better place.”
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Photography by Jason Decrow.