Rice University, Baker Institute mourn loss of Weeks brothers

Rice University and the Baker Institute for Public Policy lost two bright young researchers Thursday evening in a tragic auto accident in Virginia. Stone Taylor Weeks, 24, and William Holt Weeks, 20, were killed when a tractor-trailer truck struck their car.

Stone Weeks was an assistant and researcher for Douglas Brinkley, a Rice University professor of history and fellow at the Baker Institute. Stone’s recent work included research for Brinkley’s latest book, ”The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America.” The Weeks brothers had been en route to a book party and a visit to their parents’ home in Maryland when the accident occurred.

William Holt Weeks was working this summer as a research intern at the Baker Institute. Last summer he was a research assistant at the George R. Brown School of Engineering, where he worked on the Information Technology and Sustainability course taught by Krishna Palem, Rice’s Ken and Audrey Kennedy Professor of Computer Science, and Christopher Bronk, Baker Institute fellow in technology, society and public policy. At the encouragement of Bronk and several others at Rice, Holt applied for a transfer to Rice from Eckerd College in Florida and was accepted. He would have been a junior this fall.

Stone and Holt are survived by their parents, national correspondent for NPR Digital News Linton Weeks and Jan Taylor Weeks, an artist and teacher, of Rockville, Md. A memorial service will be held at 1:30 p.m. EDT Sunday, Aug. 2, in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

Friends of Stone and Holt Weeks have created a Facebook page in their memory at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=106649687794.