Ella Cook ’28 was joyful and warm, uplifting the spirits of those around her. Friends say she possessed a strength and wisdom beyond her age, rooted in her deeply-held Christian faith. She was a hardworking student, a friend to all and an insightful conversationalist.
On Dec. 13, Cook was one of two students killed in a mass shooting on campus during a review session for ECON0110: “Principles of Economics.”
An obituary organized by Cook’s family recounts how she was “intentionally concerned for the best interests of others.” Cook’s younger sister, Mary Hamner Cook, quoted in the obituary, said that Cook was “the best big sister ever,” describing her older sister as “protective, responsible and selfless.”
A Dec. 16 email to the community from President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 described Cook, who was raised in Alabama, as “passionate and intellectually curious,” noting that she was an accomplished pianist who was interested in pursuing French and Francophone studies at Brown.
“When I met Ella on our first day of orientation,” Elina Coutlakis-Hixson ’28 wrote in an email to The Herald, “I realized I had never met anyone like her.”
The pair grew very close during their time at Brown, she wrote. “She came with me to my church, I followed her into her classes and we were essentially inseparable.”
Cook was always nonjudgmental and happy to help those around her learn. “When she took me to a Brown football game, I had to admit that I knew nothing about the sport,” Coutlakis-Hixson recalled. To rectify this, Cook spent the whole game “teaching me about touchdowns and turnovers,” she wrote.
She went out of her way to care for her friends, Coutlakis-Hixson wrote. “When Ella loved you, you could feel it down to your bones.”
Over the summer, Cook had planned to visit Coutlakis-Hixson in Washington D.C., but Cook’s flight was grounded in another city. Cook “found an old friend at the airport and hitched a ride in a thunderstorm to see me,” Coutlakis-Hixson added.
Theo Coben ’28 recalled how during their first year, Cook “picked up that (he) really liked oranges,” and often brought one from the dining hall when she’d visit his dorm.
“It took me 18 years to meet a true friend like Ella,” Coutlakis-Hixson wrote.
“We would stay up until one in the morning debating our philosophies,” she wrote, recalling her friend’s “stamina for these endless conversations.” Still, she added, “every debate we ever had ended in a similar way — ‘so I’ll see you for lunch tomorrow?’”
Tommy Leggat-Barr ’28, an opinions columnist for The Herald, met Cook in a first-year seminar during the spring 2025 semester and lived on the same dorm floor as her during their sophomore year. In a course they took together, POLS 0821D: “How to Think in an Age of Polarized Politics,” Cook was a “refreshing voice,” Leggat-Barr said.
Though Leggat-Barr held different opinions than Cook, he said, “our friendship was formed not in spite of our differences but really because of them.”
“I think that kind of the mutual respect that we both had was so meaningful,” Leggat-Barr said, adding that their friendship “was really unlike almost any that I had had in my entire life.” When Cook was involved, conversations would always become “deeper and more meaningful,” he said. “Everyone valued what she said.”
During one of the seminars, Cook responded to other students making disparaging comments about the American South, and about Alabama in particular, Leggat-Barr said. She “really tried to explain the beauty that existed in her hometown, in her home state, in the region more broadly,” he remembered. “She cared a lot about opening up people’s perspectives.”
“There is no better way to describe Ella than peaceful,” Ben Marcus ’26 wrote in a message to The Herald. He added that she was “quiet but extremely observant” and brought “brilliant and insightful comments to conversations.”
As a member of Brown Political Union, Cook brought a “quiet yet powerful gravity” to interactions, BPU leadership said in a statement to members of the organization. “Ella reminds us that engaging with others’ perspectives is best done with respect and humility — something our world can use a lot more of,” the email read.
Leggat-Barr first learned that Cook was one of the victims of the shooting while sheltering in place at the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center the night of Dec. 13. The news had spread via word of mouth throughout the sophomore class, he said.
Seeing Cook’s room across the hall after being evacuated from the OMAC “didn’t feel real,” Leggat-Barr said. He added that he will continue to feel Cook’s impact “for the rest of (his) life.”
Minutes before the Dec. 13 shooting, Cook had texted Coutlakis-Hixson, asking to meet at a dining hall after the review session ended. “The heartbreak of losing her so soon, in such a devastating way, has created a deep hole in my life,” she wrote.
“It’s difficult to put into words how much Ella affected me, how much she touched my life in a very real and long-lasting way,” Coutlakis-Hixson added.
Father Justin Bolger, associate chaplain of the University for the Catholic Community and chaplain of the Brown-RISD Catholic Community, wrote in an email to The Herald that Cook was “sweet in her loving countenance and joyful spirit and strong in her belief in Jesus Christ.”
He wrote that she regularly attended BRCC Catholic Mass on Sundays and participated in their annual fall retreat. Cook was also a member of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority and Brown Political Union. In addition, she served as vice president of the Brown College Republicans.
At her Dec. 22 funeral service, held at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, the Rev. Paul Zahl said that “Ella herself would say that the most important thing about her was her love for God.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sound wave that the organ made (at her funeral), and it pulsed through my entire body,” Coben said of attending Cook’s funeral service. “That’s probably the most spiritual experience I’ve ever had.” Being in that church and spending time in her hometown with her childhood friends made Coben feel closer to Cook, he said. “She has taught me a lot in the last month, just like she did in the previous 16 months that I knew her.”
Sarah Frank ’25 remembered Cook’s deep commitment to her religious community on campus in an email to The Herald, adding that she was “incredibly supportive of other religious groups on campus — indicative of the open mind she always carried with her.”
When Cook visited campus for “A Day on College Hill,” an event during which admitted students can visit Brown before committing to attend, Frank advised her on adjusting to Rhode Island after having grown up in a southern state.
On the day that Cook had decided to attend Brown, she messaged Frank, and the two celebrated together. After learning that Cook had been shot, Frank re-read those messages. It “broke my heart,” she wrote.
An email sent by the French and Francophone Studies Departmental Undergraduate Group said Cook was a prospective French and francophone studies concentrator. Anna Ershova ’26, a FFS DUG leader, wrote in the email that “Ella’s instructors within our department have shared that she was a wonderful student and a deeply kind and thoughtful human being.”
In a message to The Herald, Ershova wrote that the FFS DUG received “a lot of really heartfelt messages from Ella’s friends and community members” following her passing.
Professor of French and Francophone Studies Lewis Seifert, who taught Cook during her first semester at Brown, wrote in an email to The Herald that she “had a true passion for her studies that was visible every day in class.”
“Ella was particularly engaged with the course material” of his class, Seifert added. She “always had insightful questions and comments to share.” He noted that she was “a model student” and that he had hoped to have the opportunity to teach her again during her time at Brown.
Coutlakis-Hixson remembered Cook’s humility, academic and otherwise: “She was just too humble to brag about her talents,” she wrote. “We both spoke French fluently, and whenever someone asked which of us was better at the language, she would insist that I was.”
Cook improved the mood of every room she was in, Marcus recalled, which he attributed to her “southern charm and her infectious smile.”
That smile struck professors and classmates alike. It “lit up our classroom,” Seifert wrote.
“Over these past few days, I’ve tried to focus on that smile,” Seifert added. “It will stay with me for the rest of my life.”
Annika Singh is The Herald’s tech chief and a metro editor from Singapore. She covers crime, justice and local politics, but mainly she stands in line for coffee and looks up answers every time she attempts a crossword.
