Eileen L. Brooks, assistant professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, died Wednesday, February 1, at Dominican Hospital after a lengthy battle with cancer. She was 33 years old. No services are planned.
Brooks joined the UCSC faculty in 2001 after earning a Ph.D. in economics from
Harvard University. A 1994 graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
she earned a M. Litt. from Oxford University in international relations in 1996.
At UCSC, Brooks taught courses in international trade, international economics,
and advanced quantitative methods. An affiliate of College Nine, she was a
member of the Santa Cruz Center for International Economics (SCCIE) and served
as seminar coordinator for the center last year. She was also a member of
Economics Department's International Trade Search Committee and the Computer
Committee. In 2004, Brooks organized the 11th Annual Empirical Investigations in
International Trade meeting.
Among her numerous honors, Brooks was a Rhodes Scholar from 1994-96 and held a Sumner Lichter Fellowship in 1997-98. She received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship from 1996-99 and was an EIIT Conference Graduate Student Competition Winner in 2000. In 2000-01, Brooks received a Chiles Fellowship. As an undergraduate at MIT, she received the Robert Muh Award for outstanding undergraduate research and a Kawamura Visiting Fellowship in 1994.
In addition to her academic work, Brooks was a short-term policy consultant for
the World Bank in 1997 and neural networks intern for State Street Bank in 1998.
Brooks is survived by her parents, Helen and David, of Lincoln, Nebraska;
grandparents Lowell and MaryHelen Barnes of Pendleton, Indiana; and brother
Daniel Brooks, sister-in-law Jennifer Racine, and nephew Benjamin Daniel Brooks
of Madison, Wisconsin.
Contributions to a fund in Brooks' honor that will support graduate students in
economics may be directed to the UCSC Foundation, care of John Leopold, Social
Sciences 1, University of California, Santa Cruz, 95064. Please include "Eileen
Brooks Memorial Fund" in the check's memo line.
