A double loss

                                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                       

Wu Ying and Qu Ming were two MS students in my electrical engineering department at USC. I mourn for their tragic loss in a shooting that took place outside the campus yesterday. Today would have been Ming's 24th birthday.

I did not know them personally. They did not take any classes with me. But by all the accounts given by my colleagues today in a brief department memorial, these were two wonderful, smart, quietly hard-working students. They had taken a series of challenging classes, and were just about to graduate at the end of this semester, a few weeks away. No doubt they had great hopes and dreams for their future.

As a father, I cannot bring myself to even imagine the magnitude of this loss to their parents in China. It must be very painful, indeed. My deepest sympathies go out to them and all who knew, loved, and cared for Ying and Ming.