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It is with profound sadness that I report the passing of our incoming Carr Center Fellow Brooke Ellison. Brooke was the first quadriplegic student to graduate from Harvard College (BA '00) and Harvard Kennedy School (MPP '04).

Brooke was hit by a car at the age of 11, and subsequently was fully dependent on the assistance of other people and needed a ventilator to allow her to breathe. She managed to get as far as she did through sheer personal strength and through the unwavering support of her family, especially her mother Jean.

Over the staggering 34 years that Brooke lived with her condition, Jean devoted just about every day of her own life to Brooke. I taught my first MPP ethics class at ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø in the fall of 2002, and Brooke was one of the most talented students in that class. Jean was there with her, every time, and she was as much a member of the ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø MPP class of 2004 as Brooke was herself. Just remembering the two of them operate is a source of inspiration that I will never forget. While they were on campus, everyone knew who they were, mother and daughter.

After her ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø years, Brooke dedicated her life to the causes of disabled people. She became an activist who ran for office. She also became an academic who wrote books about her own experiences, and thus about the possibilities of flourishing even under such dire circumstances. Brooke’s 2002 memoir, Miracles Happen, was made into a movie, The Brooke Ellison Story. The movie was directed by Christopher Reeve, the former Superman actor who was suffering from the same condition following a horse-riding accident.

Brooke’s academic work was at the intersection of ethics and policy of science and healthcare. 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. At the time of her death, Brooke was a tenured associate professor at Stony Brook University and was in the process of being promoted to full professor.

In fall 2023 we started conversations about her becoming a Fellow at the Carr Center in the 2024–25 academic year. We were eager to have her with us and build a program on disability rights around her. She in turn was excited to be back at Harvard, and to continue her work at the Carr Center (having partially credited my 2002 class for sparking her interest in ethics). We had processed the appointment, and had started to talk about how to find accommodation. I still have a recent email from Brooke in my inbox in which she asked to get together on zoom to take stock of where things stood. Although her fellowship with Carr will never come to be, the light Brooke brought to the world will continue to shine. And thank you, Jean, for letting this light shine for so many years.

Mathias Risse, Faculty Director, Carr Center