MAHDIEH GHASSEMI AND HER CHILDREN, ARSAN AND ARNICA NIAZI

An architect, Mahdi eh Ghassemi recently won an award for designing a Tim Hortons building. She worked at Architecture Inc., an architecture and civil engineering firm in Richmond Hill, Ont., founded in 2009.

The company’s founder, Nitin Malhotra, said she had studied architecture in Iran and recertified in Canada when she immigrated. Malhotra said he’d hired her about five years ago and described her as a rock star.

“Sure enough, within a couple of months, we had to give her raises because she was an overachiever,” he said. “She was my right-hand person in the office.”

Malhotra said she was a loving mother to two children.

Negar Khalili, who studied architecture with Ghassemi in Iran starting in 1999, described her as hard- working and determined. She was caring for her two children in Canada while working and studying to get her licence in Ontario.

“To me, she was really beautiful,” Khalili said. “She was very kind, she was supportive.”

Khalili said Ghassemi loved her family in Iran, and that’s why she went back to visit. “When she had goals, you could say she was gonna get it.”

Ghassemi’s son, listed as Arsan Niazi on the passenger manifest, but spelled Arsam elsewhere, was 11 and a student in Grade 6 at Pleasant Public School. Daughter Arnica Niazi, 8, was a Grade 3 student at Finch Public School.

The family is survived by her husband, Hamid Niazi, according to the Globe and Mail.