House to Commemorate Eliot Senior With Book

Eliot House will commemorate the death of Navid Saheb-Kashsaf '88, who would have turned 21 today, by donating a book in his name to the house library, friends and house officials said.

Saheb-Kashaf died September 8 when he was hit by a drunk driver in the San Francisco area. The Eliot senior was vacationing with his parents there when the accident occurred. The Iranian-born Saheb-Kashaf died before reaching the hospital.

Saheb-Kashaf, a physics concentrator, was to have moved into Eliot House's D-entry with Philip B. Newman '88, Paul D. King '88 and Sey-Hyo Lee '88.

"We'll miss him a lot," Lee said.

Lee said Saheb-Kashaf often "kept to himself" and did not have many friends outside his rooming group.

But he was very active in many of Harvard's volunteer programs, including Phillips Brooks House's Workforce and Eliot's "Evening with Champions" ice skating fundraiser, Lee said. Saheb-Kashaf spent last semester in Budapest studying mathematics.

Lee, who worked at the house library with Saheb-Kashaf, said he will help choose the commemorative edition.

"I'll make sure it gets done," he said.

While working as a library attendant in the house, Saheb-Kashaf helped convert the library's cataloguing system to that of the Library of Congress, said Eliot Librarian Melanie Northrop. Northrop described him as "a very nice, kind person."

Eliot Acting Senior Tutor Stephen C. Szaraz '83 said that Saheb-Kashaf will be greatly missed.

Although the commemorative book has yet to be chosen, Szaras said it will be "a book that he [Saheb-Kashaf] would have liked to see placed in the library."