Western University in London, Ont., is remembering its four graduate students who died in the crash of flight 752.
Ghazal Nourian, Milad Nahavandi, Hadis Hayatdavoudi and Sajedeh Saraeian were all on board when two missiles were launched at the Ukrainian airliner near Tehran on Jan 8.
Ghazal Nourian was a Ph.D. student at Nanophotonic Energy Materials.
Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Eric Johlin, described Nourian as a wonderful addition to their Ph.D. group and a loss not just for the university but for everyone.
“One of the things that impressed me most about Ghazal was how excited and motivated she was to start her work here,” Johlin said.
“Considering how quick progress she made in her quick time here, I really wish I could have seen the scientist that such a bright and enthusiastic student such as herself would have become.”
A close friend and fellow student Tara Amiri said words could not describe how kind, thoughtful, trustworthy, smart and beautiful she was inside and out.
“As a friend, no matter what, she is always there for everyone.”
Milad Nahavandi was a Ph.D. student at Industrial Bio Product Lab.
Milad Nahavandi was an excellent scholar who was loved by many who knew him.
Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Chunbao Xu, said Nahavandi stood out as a Ph.D. candidate from the beginning, already having five published papers.
“We came to the lab late every weekend and stayed late to learn the experiments.”
Xu said that Nahavandi fixed much of the lab’s broken equipment as well as invented a new device for his own project.
Nahavandi also helped his fellow graduate students and always had a smile on his face, Xu added.
Close friend Farshad Jalili described Milad as brave, a genius and an energetic person who was planning on being a university professor.
“For me, Milad is alive, and I imagine him walking in the corridor of an engineer building, walking and talking with different people about different issues,” Jalili said.
“I have Milad in my heart and my mind now and forever.”
Hadis Hayatdavoudi was a Ph.D. student at Electrochemistry and Corrosion Science Centre.
Hadis Hayatdavoudi saw beauty in things that others take for granted.
The Ph.D. student at Western studied the effects of hydrogen on copper at the Electrochemistry and Corrosion Science Centre. Its goal is to examine how corrosion affects nuclear waste containers.
As a byproduct of Hayatdavoudi’s research, the copper she pumped with hydrogen was melted down into tiny balls, which would normally be thrown away, her supervisor said.
“She saw beauty in these little tiny beads of copper, and she was saving them because she thought that she could maybe employ them in making jewelry or something like that. I have a little box of these things that were saved from her work,” Jamie Noel said, shaking the box so the beads clattered together.
Noel said Hayatdavoudi had spent a month in Iran with her family — her first time back home since she moved to Canada on her own in September 2018. He said she was on the flight so she could be back in Canada in time to act as a teaching assistant for one of his courses.
“She found Canadians were very welcoming to her, coming from so far away, all by herself, a single woman in a strange country, with a different language,” said Noel, who noted that she quickly found community with other Persian students in his lab.
Sajedeh Saraeian was an incoming MSC student about to start in the Chemical Engineering program.
Sajedeh Saraeian was an incoming master’s student who died on the flight along with her husband, Mohammad Javad Mianji.
“She had so many hopes and dreams to fulfill and always talked about the purpose of her life to find a cure of diabetics to prevent them from multiple daily painful injections,” Pooneh Farhat said.
“She had a golden heart who loved and was loved.”
Farhat said both Saraeian and her husband touched many lives as volunteers at an Iranian orphanage.
“They wanted to have children and what beautiful children they would have been, what great and deserving parents they would have been,” Farhat said.
In 2010, she ranked in the top three per cent in the Iranian National University entrance exam.
Saraeian was excited to start a new chapter in her life after being accepted to start her masters in chemical engineering at Western.
A letter of recommendation in her file said she was “an articulate business woman capable of carrying out any job in the industrial world.”
A small memorial was held last week after news of the tragic loss broke, but Wednesday’s vigil was meant to include the broader community.
More 500 students, staff and Londoners were at the vigil held at the university’s Alumni Hall to pay their respects for the talented lives lost.
“In a time of such a profound loss, we can take comfort in support of those around us, you being there says a lot about the kind of community we have at Western and in London,” Western president Alan Shepard said.
At 1 p.m., universities across Canada held a moment of since for the 176 victims on the plane, many of whom were students, faculty, researchers and alumni.
After repeatedly denying responsibility, Iran has since said it was responsible for the crash, calling it “human error.”
The Ukrainian airliner was approaching a sensitive military base belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps after its takeoff, according to the statement by the Iranian government.
All of the 176 passengers were killed in the crash. Of those on board, 138 were getting connecting flights to Canada, and 57 of them had Canadian citizenship.
Speaking on behalf of the City of London at the vigil, Mayor Ed Holder conveyed his deepest sympathies.
“Words can’t replace the loss. Words can provide some comfort because it says that we are not alone. We share that grief, and I understand that grief very well,” he said.
“Together, these young people represented something to us because they were family, and they will not be forgotten.”
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