Sloan grad student found dead
Heng ‘Nikita’ Guo passed away Friday, death a suicide
PHoto courtesy of the MIT News Office
Heng “Nikita” Guo, an MBA student in MIT’s Sloan School, passed away last Friday in her apartment in Cambridge. Her death has been ruled a suicide by the Medical Examiner’s office. She was 28.
Her death certificate, filed Oct. 30, states that she hanged herself. She was discovered by her husband, Bochao Zhang, on Friday evening.
Guo was born in Lanzhou, China on June 5, 1984. She lived in Shenzhen, China before moving to the U.S. in 2001 to pursue a BS in electrical engineering at Texas A&M University. According to her LinkedIn profile, while in college, she was involved with The Academy of Future International Leaders, the Asian Presidents Council, and the Aggie Band.
Upon graduating in 2006, Guo moved to New York City and worked on Wall Street in investment banking, private equity, and hedge fund roles before enrolling in Sloan’s MBA program in 2011.
Nikita was also the Founder and CEO of Natural Loong Group, a startup tackling preventive healthcare by combining technology and traditional Indian and Asian healthcare knowledge, according to Guo’s blog.
She was expected to graduate from Sloan in 2013.
The news was announced to the MIT community on Tuesday, through a campuswide email from President L. Rafael Reif. “Such a loss of a promising young person is intensely painful,” wrote Reif in his email. “Our hearts go out to Ms. Guo’s husband and her family.”
He encouraged students to reach out to those around them, with a reminder that students should contact Mental Health Services at 617-253-2916 if they need to talk to someone.
A private funeral service will be held on Saturday. Those looking to send flowers to the service should email jmwong@mit.edu.