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| Ph. D. candidate Bin Tang's generous spirit and warm nature will be missed. |
"It's never easy to lose a friend," began Dr. Nick Cercone, Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science, at a memorial service held for Bin Tang. Bin, a PhD candidate in the faculty, passed away suddenly in a car accident on August 19. The service brought together faculty, staff and students of Computer Science, the Halifax Chinese Students and Scholars Association and the Dalhousie community to remember and honour Bin's life on September 1.
The memorial service took place in the Scotia Auditorium in the Marion McCain Arts and Social Sciences Building. A sudden downpour had guests shaking rain out of their hair, umbrellas and jackets as they silently entered the building, accepting small flowers given out by organizers of the service.
Rev. Martha Martin, the University Chaplain, offered opening remarks for the well-attended ceremony. Friends such as Lei Dong, Zhixin Chen and Bin's Ph.D. supervisor Dr. Mike Shepherd offered words of remembrance, while others read poems and sang songs in Mandarin.
A Killam Scholar, Bin Tang began his university career in Peking University, Beijing, where he completed a BA and a Masters degree in Geology . He came to Dalhousie in 1999 from Louisiana State University where he met his wife, Elisabeth Lavac. Their daughter was born on October 12, 2003.
Bin was a bright Ph D candidate, known as a dedicated researcher and a skillful debater. Above all else, he was known as "a really nice guy" who always made himself available to help others, whether it be helping someone move into a new apartment, or figure out a complex research problem.
"As Bin progressed in his research, he gained a broad and in-depth knowledge - as a result, we looked on him as the senior grad student," says Dr. Michael Shepherd, who supervised Bin's PhD program. "When new students were getting started, we would always suggest they go have a talk with Bin. And he was always willing to talk with them. He was very generous with his time."
Dr. Shepherd added that Bin was known as a very bright student but what made him so highly respected was his warm personality, openness and caring approach to people, which was the essence of him.
A web page has also been created in memory of Bin. It can be viewed at http://torch.cs.dal.ca/~zhixin/tang/lovebin.htm