The aunt of University of Cambridge scientist Dr Marta Shahbazi has paid tribute to her niece, describing her as “a light for all of us” after she died in a train crash in Spain. Shahbazi was 41 and a mother of two.
She was travelling to a conference in El Rompido, Andalusia, to collect an award from the Spanish Society for Developmental Biology for her contributions to the study of early human development. On 28 October, her train collided with another near Urda, south of Madrid. The crash killed 69 people.
Shahbazi’s aunt, María José Alonso, told the BBC that hundreds of friends travelled from around the world to attend a funeral in Madrid on Monday. She remembered her niece as an energetic and exceptionally friendly person, and as an “amazing lab mate and amazing friend”.
Alonso said Shahbazi had initially planned to drive to the award ceremony with her family but chose to take the train. After the crash, the family went to a station in Madrid and spent the day seeking information. They were told on Saturday that Shahbazi had been identified.
Born and educated in Madrid, Shahbazi studied biology at a public university in the city before moving to the UK as a postdoctoral fellow at Cambridge. She lived in Cambridge with her husband and children, and led a research group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology on the city’s biomedical campus.
Alonso, a professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela, recalled rehearsing conference talks with Shahbazi when she was a child. She said her niece had shown an early interest in science and was highly determined.
The Laboratory of Molecular Biology described Shahbazi as an inspiring and passionate scientist, calling her death a profound shock and a huge loss. It also said she was an admired role model for a “mother scientist”, a term she used for herself.
Sources: BBC News UK.