On January 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 was shot down by the Iranian military after it took off from Tehran, Iran. The crash killed 176 passengers and crew members on board. Among the victims was Hadis Hayatdavoudi, a graduate student at Western University, studying copper corrosion with the aim of creating better nuclear waste systems.

New scholarships honour the victims

In remembrance of her, a new scholarship was created at Western to award $3,000 a chemistry student each year. The Hadis Hayatdavoudi Scholarship in Chemistry was made possible by Western alum Nasim Bagheri who donated $30,000 to the university.

Western also created another scholarship, the Flight 752 Memorial Graduate Scholarship in Engineering and Science, funded in part by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. This scholarship was created in honour of the four Western students Hayatdavoudi, Ghazal Nourian, Milad Nahavandi and Sajedeh Saraeian, who lost their lives in the tragedy. The scholarship will be awarded annually to a full-time master's or doctoral student in the Faculty of Science or the Faculty of Engineering. International students from Iran will be given preference.

Ontario government scholarship program

The Ontario government also established a scholarship program with 57 new scholarships available in honour of the 57 Canadians that were on board Flight PS752. The scholarships were dispersed between post-secondary institutions in Ontario and will be awarded to students based on financial need and merit.

Four scholarships of $10,000 each from this scholarship program will be available for undergraduate students at Western.

To find out more about the scholarships at Western, please visit the Western University website.