In Memoriam: Emma Pearl Wilmer-Shiles ’18 G, Lochie Ferrier ‘19
In a statement to the MIT Community, President Sally Kornbluth announced the deaths of Emma Pearl Willmer-Shiles ’18 G and Lochie Ferrier ’19 in a plane crash off the coast of California. A San Francisco native, Willmer-Shiles studied mechanical engineering as an undergraduate. At the time of her passing, Willmer-Shiles was a second-year graduate student in Architecture. Ferrier was an alumnus of the AeroAstro Department and was working as an aeronautical engineer.
Kornbluth wrote that Willmer-Shiles was “known for her brilliance and dedication as a designer and for her exceptional qualities as a person, including great kindness and a hilarious wry wit.” In her undergraduate years, Pearl was a member of the Sigma Kappa sorority. Pearl was living off-campus with her partner.
Quoting one of Willmer-Shiles’s professors, Kornbluth wrote that Willmer-Shiles “‘made beautiful, elegant, thoughtful things, and embodied those qualities in her own humanity as well.’”
During his time at MIT, Ferrier was President of the MIT Flying Club and a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.