Memorial services will be held today in Cambridge for a Harvard University student who died Friday evening in an apparent suicide.
Marian H. Smith, a junior in Winthrop House at Harvard University, died around 5:30 p.m. Friday at Mount Auburn Hospital after being rushed there in an ambulance an hour earlier.
The exact cause of death has yet to be released. But police said foul play has been ruled out. If Smith’s death is determined to be a suicide, it will be the 12th suicide committed by a Harvard undergraduate or graduate student since 1990.
Winthrop House Senior Tutor Courtney Lamberth said that though the initial shock is subsiding, she thinks the impact will continue to be felt to varying degrees.
“We are fortunate to be part of a community that came together so quickly and compassionately in the face of such a terrible tragedy,” Lamberth said in an e-mail to Winthrop House students.
Smith, who studied social anthropology, spoke at least six languages, including Somali, Danish, French, German and Luxembourgish, and was studying Italian.
“Marian was just an amazing person. So incredibly nice, upbeat, and outgoing — I am left with nothing but fond memories of her,” a close friend of Smith said in an e-mail.
–Marlon S. Castillo