Memorial planned for UW grad who touched many lives

Friends, relatives and colleagues on May 23 will celebrate the life of Antoinette “Tony” Derjani-Bayeh, a UW–Madison Ph.D. graduate whose life was tragically cut short in a traffic accident.

Derjani-Bayeh, 30, completed her Ph.D. in industrial engineering last winter and planned to take part in the spring 1999 commencement ceremonies. She was just completing her first semester as an assistant professor at Purdue University. On the morning of April 27, she was struck and killed by a car while walking to her campus office.

During commencement ceremonies this weekend, industrial engineering doctoral graduates and faculty, as well as some members of the official commencement party, wore multi-colored lapel ribbons to honor Derjani-Bayeh. A service is also planned at 2 p.m. Sunday in the On Wisconsin Room of the Old Red Gym, 716 Langdon St.

Derjani-Bayeh had an extraordinary impact on people in both her professional and personal life, colleagues say.

“She really had a Mother Theresa-type heart in wanting to reach out and help people around her,” said IE Professor Michael Smith, Derjani-Bayeh’s faculty adviser. “She had a very strong belief in social justice, and that engineering could be used to improve life for people who were disadvantaged.”

That belief led her to Smith’s “community ergonomics” discipline, which applies engineering principles to solving problems in inner cities. Her Ph.D. work drew heavily from her experiences with an ergonomics project in downtown Milwaukee.

“The huge loss of this young woman is that she was just starting to get some ideas on paper that would have had an incredible impact,” he said.

Leah Newman, a longtime friend and classmate of Derjani-Bayeh, said her friend was involved in countless engineering organizations, and served as a mentor for Hispanic and women engineers. She was also an active volunteer in Madison food pantries and services for victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault.

Derjani-Bayeh was born and raised in Venezuela and also lived in Beirut, Lebanon, where her mother still resides. She was a bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. graduate of UW–Madison who first came to study here in 1986. Newman said people from around the country plan to attend Sunday’s memorial.

“This will be a celebration of her life because that’s what Tony would have wanted,” she said. “But it will be a celebration with tears.”