‘They brought joy wherever they went’
University of Waterloo remembers students and alumni killed on flight
— Hundreds gathered at the University of Waterloo on Wednesday for a memorial for students and alumni who were killed on flight PS752.
Two of the university’s PhD students — Marzieh (Mari) Foroutan, 37, of the faculty of environment and Mansour Esnaashary Esfahani, 29, of the faculty of engineering — were killed after the plane they were passengers on was downed by missiles outside of Tehran last week.
“They were certainly very talented, intelligent bright PhD students but to us, to our community, they were much more than that,” university president Feridun Hamdullahpur said to the solemn crowd.
“In this short period of time I have heard so many wonderful things about them — about their sense of humour, creativity, energy and how they brought joy wherever they went.”
All 176 people aboard the Ukrainian passenger plane en route to Kyiv from Tehran died when it was accidentally shot down by Iranian forces minutes after takeoff last Wednesday. Of those on board, 138 were on their way to Canada.
About 300 people attended the memorial in Federation Hall.
Foroutan, who started studying at UW in 2017, was in Iran over the holidays. It had been three years since she had been back to visit her family, said Mazda Kompanizare, the graduate supervisor Foroutan studied under when she completed a degree in Iran years ago.
“She cared about people,” said Kompanizare, adding that’s an important thing he learned from her — how much a person can care about others.
Esfahani, who started his PhD at UW in 2017, was also in Iran over the holidays. During his visit he married the “love of his life,” said his childhood friend, Alireza Mohamadizadeh. “We lost a great friend, an amazing person and an outstanding talent,” said Mohamadizadeh, who is also a graduate student at UW. “He will be missedsomuch.”
Tribute was also paid to UW alumni Neda Sadighi, and Mojgan Daneshmand and her husband Pedram Mousavi, and their children.
Sadighi was part of UW’s optometry bridging program and was at the school for four months. Daneshmand did her PhD at UW and Mousavi was a post-doctoral fellow at the school.
As the memorial came to an end at 1 p.m., students, staff and faculty joined universities across the country in a moment of silence. Many who died on the plane were students and staff at post-secondary institutions in Canada.
“I hope that the world, our country, our institutions, will never face a tragedy of this magnitude again,” said Hamdullahpur.