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Memorial To Be Held At USC For Slain Professor
Bosco Tjan (Photo courtesy of USC)
There will be a memorial Monday for slain USC professor Bosco Tjan, 53, who was fatally stabbed inside USC’s Seeley G. Mudd building on Friday afternoon. Tjan had worked at USC since 2001, and was considered an expert in perception, vision and vision cognition. The memorial will be held at noon today at Hahn Plaza, near the Tommy Trojan statue.
USC President C.L. Max Nikias will host, while Varun Soni, dean of religious life, will lead the service, CBS Los Angeles reports.
Tjan’s colleague, neuroscience professor Irving Biederman, told KPCC he had known Tjan since the 80s.
“He was warm and supportive and as friendly as you could be. And in fact he had this brilliance and technical virtuosity. It's just an absolute shame that one of the best people on our planet has been prematurely taken from us,” he said.
A student, 28-year-old David Jonathan Brown, has been arrested for Tjan's murder. Brown is a neuroscience doctoral student, and authorities believe that Tjan was specifically targeted by Brown. The USC Department of Public Safety cited the motive as a “personal dispute,” according to Mercury News.
Brown had worked at the lab since 2013, but took a leave of absence last year for a semester for unknown reasons. Other graduate students who knew Brown described him as reserved and quiet, but friendly, and were shocked by Tjan's murder.
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