Biography
Brooke Ellison was an American writer, academic and disability rights advocate. Born in Rockville Centre, New York, on 20 October 1978, she became quadriplegic after a car accident at the age of eleven. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 2000 with a degree in cognitive neuroscience and later earned a master's degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a PhD in sociology from Stony Brook University.
Ellison co-wrote the memoir Miracles Happen: One Mother, One Daughter, One Journey (2002) with her mother, Jean. It was adapted into the 2004 television film The Brooke Ellison Story, directed by Christopher Reeve. She published a second memoir, Look Both Ways, in 2021. Ellison appeared in the 2024 documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. She served as an associate professor at Stony Brook University and held roles in disability advocacy organisations. She died on 4 February 2024 in Stony Brook, New York.
