The University of Waterloo has created a scholarship and memorial fund to honour the memories of members of the university community who died in the crash of Ukrainian International Airlines Flight PS752 in Iran.
Among the people with ties to Canada who died were Waterloo PhD students Marzieh (Mari) Foroutan and Mansour Esnaashary Esfahani, alumnus Mojgan Daneshmand (PhD '06), her husband Pedram Moussavi (a former Waterloo postdoctoral fellow) and their two young children, Daria and Dorina, as well as former student Dr. Neda Saddighi.
The University is seeking to raise money to go towards the Mari Foroutan Memorial Graduate Scholarship and the Iranian Student Memorial Engineering Fund. The goal is to create a legacy of support for generations of students to come. The University will match donations up to a total of $100,000.
"The goal of these funds is to honour the academic, research and personal contributions of Mari, Mansour, Mojgan, Pedram and Neda, and to inspire future international students to pursue their dreams of higher education," said Feridun Hamdullahpur, president and vice-chancellor of Waterloo.
In the past weeks, Canada's academic community has come together to remember and mourn the 176 people who lost their lives in the crash.
Hundreds of Waterloo students, faculty and staff attended a campus memorial service on January 15, with another 1,000 people tuning into the event via livestream. Many across the campus community reached out to ask how they could do more.
