Tributes paid to an exceptional student killed in terror attack

The University of Cambridge community is deeply saddened to hear news of the death of Tammy Chen in a terrorist attack in Burkina Faso on Sunday. Our thoughts are with her family and many friends at the university and throughout the world.

Tammy was an exceptional student and very active in the graduate community of Gonville & Caius College. She was completing her PhD in International Development and also ran a charity called Bright Futures which provided education and microcredits to women in some of the poorest parts of the world.

Eilís Ferran, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Institutional and International Relations, said: “The tragedy of Tammy Chen’s death will be felt by her many friends within the University and the wider academic community. Her studies and charity work embodied the values this University upholds. She looked beyond the walls of academia and sought to improve the lives of women in some of the poorest areas of the world. We send our heartfelt condolences to her family and friends.”

The Gonville & Caius College flag is flying at half mast today to mark her death and the College has paid tribute to her on its webpages.

Tammy, a Canadian, was finishing a PhD in International Development, focusing on poverty, gender and women's empowerment.

College Master, Professor Sir Alan Fersht paid tribute to her as "an exceptional woman, very active in the Caius graduate community and passionate about her research and helping people. She had so much to offer the world and it is a tragedy for her to be lost so young.

"From 2011, Tammy co-founded and ran a Canadian registered charity called Bright Futures of Burkina Faso, which sought to extend both education and microcredits to women in some of the poorest parts of the world. During her time at Caius, she gave a memorable and inspiring talk to graduates and Fellows on how the shea butter industry was empowering women in Burkina Faso. She had recently got married and was expecting a baby.”

The Master has announced plans to raise funds for a studentship in her name to honour her memory.

The Department Politics and International Studies and the Centre of Development Studies expressed their profound shock and sadness at Tammy Chen's death.

Dr Graham Denyer Willis, PhD Director for the Centre of Development Studies, paid tribute to her: “We are profoundly saddened by the recent killing of our student, friend, and mutual inspiration, Tammy Chen. She was a superlative woman whose steps through life reflect a kind of conviction that few people show, or care to show. Whether she was teaching Canadian anglophones French, or working with impoverished women in Sub-saharan Africa to build new pathways to safety, food security and self-sufficiency, Tammy was an embodiment of what the world should be.

"She moved against the grain of injustice and inequality, pushing and breaking through boundaries to make mutual understanding and care for others a foundation of a world that we do, in fact, all share. We hold Tammy, and all that she worked for and was inspired to make, as a model of what a human being should be. She made the Centre of Development Studies, and those around her, better.”