ECE mourns untimely deaths of those aboard Ukraine International Airlines flight

Thursday, January 9, 2020

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering mourns the untimely deaths of all those aboard the Ukraine International Airlines flight that crashed near Tehran this week.  Our thoughts go out to the families, friends and colleagues – both in Waterloo and at our peer institutions – affected by this unfathomable tragedy. 

Numerous victims in the crash had strong ties to our department’s faculty, staff and students; among the victims, husband and wife, Pedram Mousavi and Mojgan Daneshmand, and their two daughters Daria (14 years) and Dorina (9 years).

Mojgan, a Professor at the University of Alberta, was a PhD student (2002-2006), and later a Postdoctoral Fellow (2006-2008) in our department supervised by Professor Raafat Mansour. According to Prof. Mansour: “The news about the tragic death of Mojgan and her family today in the Ukraine plane crash was so devastating to me.  I cannot explain how much I am saddened and I cannot imagine that I will not see them again.  The last phone call I had with Mojgan was early December 2019, a few days before her travel to Iran.”

Pedram, also a Professor at the University of Alberta, was a postdoctoral fellow in Professor Safieddin Safavi-Naeini’s research group in the early 2000s, and according to Safavi-Naeini, his “closest and dearest friend and research colleague, for more than two decades. U Alberta has undoubtedly lost two of their best…A big loss to our community. Please remember them and their family."

The couple travelled to Iran over the holidays to visit family.  

If you are grieving or need any support, there are people who can help you. Please contact any of the following resources: