ATLAS e-News

Engin Abat

It's hard to loose a colleague, but it's even harder to loose a good friend. It was a terrible shock for me when I woke up and learned that Engin was one of the people aboard the flight.

I got a chance to work with him this year when he came to CERN for the summer. While he was at CERN, we worked together installing the TRT hardware interlock and the many hours spent working in the pit led themselves to many enjoyable and memorable conversations.

Although I actually only knew Engin for a few months, it didn't take long before I considered him a good friend. I was always impressed with his enthusiasm to help and his genuine interest to learn as much as he could while we were crawling around insides of ATLAS.

Engin was very excited to be at CERN, not only for the chance working on ATLAS but also because of the unique opportunity for people from different countries to share their cultures with each other. I'll never forget the good time we had when he got many of the Turkish students together to make meze and shared it with our group during a summer BBQ, or the time when we got him to eat his first marshmallow.

I was very much looking forward to working with him again next summer, and it's still difficult to accept that this won't be case. My deepest condolences go out to his friends and family. This was a sudden and tragic loss, and he will be missed.

John Penwell

Graduate student, Indiana University