News Archives

Memorial Service Planned for Civil Engineering Students

June 9, 2010

A life tribute service for two UNM graduate students killed in a car crash over the weekend will be held on Thursday, June 10 at 10 am in the Alumni Chapel on campus. Those who knew the students are invited to share thoughts and honor their memories.

A group grief/debrief session with Harry Linneman of UNM Student Health and Counseling (SHAC) will be held Friday, June 11th at 1 pm in the Santa Ana room on the upper level of the SUB. Students who would like to talk to a counselor individually are invited to call the counseling center for an appointment.

The students were returning to Albuquerque after a hiking trip to Tent Rocks when their car went off the road and rolled over.  A third student was injured in the accident and taken to UNMH. Two other people in the car were also injured.

huangYi Huang, a 24-year old master’s student, had been scheduled to complete her degree this summer.  She began her graduate work at UNM in the fall of 2008 and she was studying pavement design and engineering.

Mohammad Minhaz Mahdi began his master’s degree at UNM in the fall of 2009. He was from Bangladesh and was studying computational mechanics. Mahdi’s friends have arranged a viewing for him at 3 p.m. on Thursday at French Mortuary.

Nasrin Sumee, also a master’s degree student from Bangladesh, was injured and remains in stable condition at UNM Hospital.mahdi

UNM Provost Suzanne Ortega said, “This is such tragic news for the university community and especially difficult for the three students’ friends and colleagues in Civil Engineering. On behalf of President Schmidly and the UNM community, we offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of Yi Huang and Mohammad Minhaz Mahdi and our prayers for the speedy recovery of Nasrin Sumee.  The university is in contact with the families and has offered whatever assistance they will need during this difficult time.” 

Media contact: Karen Wentworth (505) 277-5627; kwent2@unm.edu