Marzieh "Mari" Foroutan

1982 - 2020  (38 years)

• Name	Marzieh "Mari" Foroutan
  Born	1982
  Gender	Male
  Eby ID Number	Waterloo-209709
  Died	8 Jan 2020	Tehran, , Tehrån, Irân
  Person ID	I209709	Generations
  Last Modified	6 Apr 2024

  
  

• Notes

  University of Waterloo faculty pay tribute to student who died on Flight PS752 WATERLOO - University of Waterloo student Marzieh (Mari) Foroutan is being remembered by staff and students as a hardworking and passionate researcher, but also as a kindhearted friend and talented artist. "She was very kind and loyal, very determined," said Maryam Latifpoor-Keparoutis, director of student advancement for the faculty of environment at UW. "For someone who was so smart, she was just so low key; very humble," Foroutan, 37, was a passenger on Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 that crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran's main airport on Wednesday. There were no reported survivors. On Friday, friends, colleagues and university staff who had come to know Foroutan, gathered together on campus for a memorial hosted by the faculty of environment. The faculty is also planning to create a scholarship in her name. "The heartbreak felt by those who had the joy of knowing Mari personally is immeasurable," said Foroutan's supervisor, Waterloo professor Claude Duguay in a statement. "She was dedicated to her important environmental work and was part of an especially tight knit water research group here at Waterloo. She will be missed." Foroutan began studying her PhD in geography at the university in 2017. She was studying climate change and was conducting research at Sunfish Lake, located just outside Waterloo in Wilmot Township. Kevin Thomason, who lives at the lake and is a member of the Sunfish Lake association, said Foroutan was a fixture in the community. Foroutan and her research partner would take Thomason's rowboat out on the water at least once a week, where they had set up cameras and sensors to collect information such as lake temperatures and water currents. "As a field researcher, you're out in the field, and we happened to be her field," said Thomason. "As a result, she's gotten to know a lot of people in the Sunfish community and we've gotten to know her ... she was always the smiling person under the hat." She was determined to make the world a better place, said Don Duff-McCracken, interim director of mapping, analysis and design at the university. "She was really a passionate believer in trying to help with the climate change issue that's facing the whole world." Foroutan had been in Iran over the holidays visiting her mother in the city of Shiraz, her brother Mohammad Foroutan told The Record Thursday while he was travelling to Iran from his home in the United States. He said she was very fond of Waterloo and the friends she had made. He also shared pictures of her drawings, as she was a talented artist, and said during her trip to Iran she spoke to her family a lot about her concern with pollution and water shortages. "I cannot stop crying," he said via Facebook messenger. Mari was one of 176 aboard the ill-fated flight from Tehran to Kyiv. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said 138 of the 176 passengers aboard the plane had a connecting flight to Canada. There were at least 63 Canadians aboard. The route is a popular one for Iranian-Canadians as there are no direct flights between Canada and Iran and the Ukrainian carrier offers affordable fares. There were a number of students, who were studying at post-secondary institutions across Canada, aboard the flight. Also confirmed to be a passenger on the flight was UW civil engineering PhD student, Mansour Esnaashary Esfahani, 29. His friend, UW graduate student Alireza Mohamadizadeh, said Esfahani was in Iran to get married. "He was smart, funny, an amazing athlete and exceptionally talented and hard-working," Mohamadizadeh told The Record. Booth, L. (2020). University of Waterloo faculty pay tribute to student who died on Flight PS752. TheRecord.com. Retrieved 11 January 2020, from https://www.therecord.com/news-story/9804417-university-of-waterloo-faculty-pay-tribute-to-student-who-died-on-flight-ps752/

  
  

• Event Map

  Died - 8 Jan 2020 - Tehran, , Tehrån, Irân  = Link to Google Earth