Graduate School of Arts and Sciences student Zeev Mendelsberg died on Saturday. His death was ruled a suicide, the medical examiner said on Tuesday.
An international student from France, Mendelsberg was working toward a master’s degree in the math department’s Mathematics of Finance program. According to his LinkedIn page, he worked in equity derivatives sales at the New York office of BNP Paribas, a French bank.
GSAS students and professors received an email about Mendelsberg’s death from math department chair Ioannis Karatzas and Mathematics of Finance program director Lars Tyge Nielsen. Dean of Community Development and Multicultural Affairs Terry Martinez passed the email along to Columbia College and School of Engineering and Applied Science students on Monday.
“We are all united in grieving the loss of a member of our community in this time of great sadness,” the professors said in their email.
Raphael Journo, GS-JTS ’15, said that Mendelsberg was “a great kid, always happy to see his friends and meet new people.”
“We met many times on campus to get lunch or even just to talk a little bit,” Journo said in an email.
Journo added that he had seen Mendelsberg recently.
“In the last week I saw him twice, and he was happy as always, with his usual smile on his face,” Journo said in an email. “The first time was last Wednesday, in Kent: he started talking to me and asked me if I wanted to get lunch some time and so we met on Thursday. Again, he seemed fine and asked me about my classes.”
“It is not easy to think that the person you had lunch with less than a week ago is gone,” Journo added.
Students can contact Counseling and Psychological Services at 212-854-2878 or 212-854-9797. Students can also contact the Center for Student Advising at 212-854-6378, the Office of the University Chaplain at 212-854-1493, and Barnard’s Rosemary Furman Counseling Center at 212-854-2092.
