Peru Let's Go researcher killed in bus accident

Haley S. Surti ’01, who had just days before received her bachelors’ degree cum laude from the College, died June 12 in a bus crash in Peru. She was 21.

Surti was traveling in Peru as a researcher and writer for one of the Let’s Go travel guides published by the Harvard Student Agencies (HSA). Her death was the first fatality of a Let’s Go writer in the publication’s 40-year history.

“We were extraordinarily saddened by this event,” said Robert B. Rombauer, the general manager of HSA. “Our heartfelt sympathies go out to the family.”

Surti, who came to Harvard from Pittsburgh, was a resident of Mather House and a biochemistry concentrator.

Those that were friends with Surti describe her as a unique individual.

“She was the greatest human being that I’ve ever met,” said her friend Aneesh V. Raman ’01. “She had [an amount of] energy unparalleled in any person that I’ve met. She did more in her 21 years than most of us will do in a lifetime.”

They also describe her as someone who always saw the best in people and was always upbeat.

“I never heard her say anything negative about anything or anybody,” said Sutri’s boyfriend Anand R. Shah ’99-’00. He described her as a “glass half full kind of person.”

As a student, Surti was devoted to her studies. Raman called her a person “who lived for learning.”

Rena Fonseca, senior tutor of Mather House and a senior lecturer in Indian studies, remembered Surti as one of the most dedicated students in her seminar on modern Indian history.

“I remember being struck by her serenity, her friendly warmth, and by her obvious delight in all the possibilities of her life at Harvard and at Mather,” said Fonseca in an e-mail message.

As well as being a devoted scholar while at Harvard, she was also active in numerous extracurricular activities. Particularly she was involved in several performing arts groups, including Gunghroo and the Kuumba Singers and service programs organized through the Phillips Brooks House Association. She was also an active member of Harvard’s South Asian Association.

“She’s very very into children,” said Treeny Ahmed ’01, who was a friend of Surti. She noted that Surti volunteered teaching children in Costa Rica during one summer while she was in college and while she studied abroad in Spain for a semester had also found time to teach children.

Friends said that Surti was quite interested in teaching as a career path. She had been planning to spend part of this fall in India working with children and was considering participating in the Teach for America program upon returning to the United States.

All these activities kept Surti quite busy while in college. Raman said that Surti was the type of individual who liked to try her hand a wide range of activities.

Despite all these interests and skills, Shah said that she was extremely modest.

She was also the type of person who was very devoted to those people who were her friends.

“There are not many people like her,” Ahmed said. “She makes friends very easily and makes really good friends.”

Raman said that the enormous crowd that attended the memorial service for Surti, which was held June 18 in Pittsburgh, demonstrated just how many lives she affected through her friendly nature.

“Harvard is a better school for her having come and our lives are better,” Raman said.

Friends of Surti indicate that many of their last memories of her are their goodbyes made after commencement. Raman said that Surti mentioned then how she did not want those goodbyes to be permanent, but her untimely death a week later makes them just that.

Fonseca also said that her last memory of Surti was from commencement.

“My last image of Haley was in the sunshine at graduation, of her walking across the Mather stage in robe and sandals, to receive her diploma, while all her friends and family clapped and cheered,” said Fonseca.