Jeremiah N Mpagazehe
January 18, 2016Share using:
Jeremiah (Jeremy) Nsabiyumva Mpagazehe, oldest son of Charles and Belinda Derr Mpagazehe was born on January 26, 1984 and raised in Natick, MA. His dad was born in Uganda, East Africa, and his mother is a native of Hickory, North Carolina. His middle name means, I asked the God who hears, because it was through answer to prayer that God blessed this couple with three offspring.
As a child Jeremy was kind, jovial, and curious. He was a spiritual young man, and came on his own decision to understand the need for salvation, and to receive Christ as his Savior. He grew up in the Greater Framingham Community Church where he attended Sunday school, youth groups, sang in the youth choir, and was a member of the Jr. Usher Board. Jeremy treated all he met with humility and respect, and extended himself to help others and made many friendships. This was the way he lived his life.
During his first and second years of school, he attended Cambridge Friends School in Cambridge, MA and entered the Natick Public Schools at the beginning of third grade. He developed an early interest in science, particularly aerospace.
At Natick High School, his innate leadership abilities led him to serve as captain of both the football and varsity track and field teams. He also, served as various class officers throughout high school, and held the esteemed position of Class President for his 2002 senior class.
Following high school, he attended Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) where he earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (2006). While there, he studied abroad at the University of New South Wales in Sydney Australia. After undergraduate studies, and in line with his interest in Aerospace Engineering, he worked for Lockheed Martin in Orlando, Florida. At the completion of two years he returned to CMU and earned his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering (2010) and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (2013).
During his graduate studies he won the prestigious NASA GSRP Ph.D. Fellowship for lunar particle-induced erosion studies, and while in graduate school he continued his research at the Glenn Research Center NASA. His doctoral thesis was in the field of Tribology Mechanical Engineering. It is titled, A Physics-Based, Eulerian-Lagrangian Computational Modeling Framework to Predict Particle Flow Tribological Phenomena.
After completing his Ph.D. program, Dr. Mpagazehe became a Project Scientist at CMU where he headed a new algae biofuel lab, and supervised and mentored almost 50 student researchers. During that time, together with two of his CMU professors, he co-founded a startup company where he was Chief Technical Officer.
Academic Honors and Awards Include: Young Tribologist Award, GuSH Project (Computational Tribology), General Motors Fellowship, Teaching Assistant award for Outstanding Teaching in Mechanical Engineering, Alfred P. Sloan Ph.D. Fellowship; Andrew Carnegie Society Presidential Scholar.
His long-held passion for international experience and his father’s heritage moved him to Carnegie Mellon University’s Rwanda campus where he began a six month visiting professor appointment. Three days before his passing, he received news that he had won his first National Science Foundation (NSF) grant as the Principle Investigator for research to commercialize high-value algae products.
Sadly, it was shortly after he began teaching that he passed away on January 18, 2016 in Kigali, Rwanda cutting short a promising future entirely too soon.
At Natick High School, his innate leadership abilities led him to serve as captain of both the football and varsity track and field teams. He also, served as various class officers throughout high school, and held the esteemed position of Class President for his 2002 senior class.
Jeremiah leaves his parents, an older sister Khari Niyibyara Mpagazehe and a younger brother Joshua Ndungutse Mpagazehe. He also leaves many aunts, uncles, cousins, family and friends in both the USA and Uganda.
