Fragility

Today is a sad day, very sad indeed. I've recently received a couple of news from my former university that left me breathless for a while. The dean of postgraduate studies of what once was my university was shot by three individuals while parking his car in front of his mother's house. Still the information available is very unclear when referring to the identities of the perpetrators of such a crime, and I would not run into conclussions about the rationale or the provenance of these people.

I met John in 2003 when I was looking for an undergrad thesis. Along with Camilo Rueda and John E., we started looking into the problem of the computation of economic equilibria for multiple products using a constraint programming approach. Due to reasons that are outside the scope of this post I stepped outside of the project, but I got to know the work John had being doing during his MSc and his PhD. I remember him as a very dedicated person, with very practical questions to answer in his research and always available to explore new research ideas. I know that after I finished my career there he undertook duties as head of the Industrial engineering programme and later as the dean of postgraduate studies at Javeriana.

The second sad event, comes from the same university and the same department of engineering. My former professor Hernando Prado was shot by individuals after having withdrawn money from an ATM. Fortunately, he is now recovering from the shots, and I expect him to be sound and safe soon. Hernando was my professor of Economic engineering, and I think that if I would have met him earlier I would have probably chosen a different path in my career. I remember that despite the time where the lectures were held (19:00 till 22:00) he was still able to fill up the classroom with students eager to learn, not only about the topics he was teaching, but about all the life experiences he was including in every single lecture. Sometimes, I remember him as an inspiration when I have to teach, and I try to convey those values in the lectures, finding them hard to transmit when you are such a rookie in teaching matters comparing to people with 20+ years of experience.

My relation with none of them is close nowadays, but still I feel touched by the fragility of life, even in "safe" environments like the university. One of the reasons why I decided to pursue an academic life is because I feel I can make a change on the life of others, just by providing a little bit of motivation and base tools for their own research. It's hard to hear that still such a honorable (and humble, in both cases cited previously) profession can be affected by cruelty like assassination, and I still refuse to believe a student can possibly be included in this matter. It also left you thinking how else can you possibly contribute to a society like mine, when such minimal values are not taken into consideration. Between my ideals are still to contribute to my country by helping others in the lines of research and education, fostering R+D in Colombia and at some point strengthen my relationship with Colombia; however, I won't put in risk the safety of my family or mine in that effort.