Maria del Pilar Tejada Ocampo. Obituary

Maria del Pilar Tejada Ocampo  tragically died in the accident of the German Wings airliner en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf. Maria from Colombia was a student who joined us at ZEF in the Department of Economics and Technological Change in August 2014. She was an immensely bright, thoughtful, focused, and very promising young scholar.

She was 33 years old and graduated in economics from the National University of Colombia and has since started to devote her academic life to development. In 2009, she completed a master's degree at the University of the Andes and became a Fellow of the Carolina Foundation for labour and academic excellence. She worked at the National Planning Department and earned there a scholarship from Colciencias, which only puts eyes on the most promising projects, and went to Germany for a doctorate at ZEF.

Even before she came to ZEF, Maria had very clearly defined plans. Her draft proposal title is “Innovation in Solid Waste Management: a tool for a Sustainable Development”. This would have been a new theme for ZEF, and Maria was excited about breaking new grounds.

She enjoyed and excelled in classical music, studying the guitarre for four years at the Fundation Francisco Cristancho. 

Maria will be dearly missed by all of us. Our thoughts are with her family and friends, especially her husband Carlos Suarez, who is a doctoral student in Barcelona, and to her parents in Bogota. We express our deep felt condolences to them.

Joachim von Braun - Director, ZEF Dep Economic and Technological Change