Badaracco Daughter Killed in Crash

Anna M. Badaracco, the 23-year-old daughter of Currier House Master Joseph L. Badaracco and stepdaughter of former Deputy Dean of the College Patricia O’Brien, died last month when she was struck by a car driven by an 84-year-old woman.

According to CBS, the driver, Lenore Liner, came up behind Badaracco, reportedly jumped the curb, and hit the young woman who was walking alone. Liner has been charged with vehicular homicide, negligent operation, and failure to keep right, Newton Police Lt. Bruce Apotheker told the Brookline Tab.

Badaracco was a 2005 graduate of Northwestern University and attended Brookline High School. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Northwestern, where she majored in International Relations and minored in Spanish, as well as participated in athletics such as field hockey and track, her father wrote in an e-mail.

“She planned to get a Ph.D. in a field that would let her study and teach about Latin America, and the next step she had planned was a master’s degree at the London School of Economics, starting this fall,” wrote Joseph Badaracco, who is also Shad Professor of Business Ethics.

Joseph Badaracco said that he was especially proud of his daughter’s service work.

“[Her] greatest accomplishment during high school and college was learning who she was and what she really cared about…by devoting countless hours [to] teaching Latino immigrants.”

In addition to her domestic volunteer work, Badaracco spent her summers in Ecuador and Bolivia, studied abroad in Chile her junior year, and taught English the year after college in Manaus, Brazil.

Jaciy Pimenta, the director of the English Teaching Professional-English as a Second Language (ETP/ESL) program in Manaus, praised Badaracco extensively in an e-mail. Volunteers in the Brazilian program are given credits based on participation and enthusiasm, and Pimenta wrote that “in ten years of…ETP/ESL program activities, [Badaracco] was the only participant who could get a score of 100 credits, for her high dedication, sense of cooperation, and responsibility toward her students.”

Joseph Badaracco wrote that he was uncertain how his daughter’s “deep passion for Latin America” developed, but stated that her interested manifested itself after O’Brien and he adopted their daughter Gabriella from Paraguay.

“Some of her friends said she almost had two personalities, which they named ‘Latin Anna’ and ‘American Anna,’” he wrote. “In fact, last Christmas, Pat and I and Anna’s three sisters—Maria, Luisa, and Gabriella—spent a great week with ‘Latin Anna’ in Rio de Janiero.”

Badaracco’s interaction with Currier House was limited, as her parents have been masters for four years during which their daughter lived at school.

“Anna’s main reaction to Currier House was a degree of surprise that Pat and I were, at our advanced ages, actually living in a dormitory, but she also understood that this was a really interesting adventure for our family,” her father wrote.

Friends ranging from Brazilian students to Currier House residents to Brookline community members have commented on the inspiration they found in the young woman and how greatly she will be missed on Badaracco’s Boston Globe ‘Guest Book’ website.

Joseph Badaracco said of the incident that “perhaps Anna’s tragedy and the many others like it will encourage families and governments to take steps to test elderly drivers and get the dangerous ones off the roads.”

In addition to her father and stepmother, Badaracco is survived by her mother Mary Anne of Brookline, sisters, Maria, Luisa and Gabriella Badaracco.

—Staff writer Kristina M. Moore can be reached at moore2@fas.harvard.edu.