“She was definitely a unique person in her style and demeanor,” Cohen said. “She had a lot of grit.”

Heather E. Lanthorn, Corrina Moucheraud, and Pamela Scorza, students from the School of Public Health, said Yavuz was “fearless in her approach to life” in an emailed statement to The Crimson. Lanthorn, Moucheraud, and Scorza were friends of Yuvza, according to Lanthorn’s mother, Sue Anne.

“Her personality was outsized to her frame,” Lanthorn, Moucheraud, and Scorza said in the statement. “She made you want to work harder, play harder, dance harder.”

Yavuz is survived by her brother and her mother, with whom, Cohen said, Yavuz was very close. Yavuz’s family could not be reached for comment.

Though Lam said he will remember Yavuz as both a long-time mentor and an “absolutely brilliant” teaching assistant, he still remembers when she would bring snacks to class just to get her students excited about global health—even on a Friday.

“She loved what she did,” Lam said. “And she cared a lot about us.”