(This is the apartment complex the police search was sent to where Shen lived. Image taken from Times Union)
In early February, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which is located only a mere 30 miles from Skidmore, lost one of their graduate students due to an extreme case of Influenza A.
At 11 a.m. on the morning of Feb. 10, Yeming Shen called 911 because of his intense flu-like symptoms; however, five hours later, his roommate found him dead in their apartment.
Unfortunately, the Troy police officers were unable to find Shen after he called 911 because of a phone number tracking problem. He was using a foreign-issued cell phone that was not traceable to a specific address. Even more, the police dispatcher in Troy stated that he was unable to understand Shen during the phone call. It is unclear whether this was due to Shen’s flu symptoms or due to miscommunication through a language barrier.
Sid Krisson ‘22, an international student at Skidmore from Bengaluru, India, remarks that he “finds it very alarming that the responders could not track Shen’s whereabouts due to him having an international number.” Furthermore, he said: “it makes me worried about my safety.”
Despite the lack of information about Shen’s location, a search party was still sent out after the 911 call. Five officers, three firefighters, and a police dog searched the general location of Shen’s apartment complex near RPI having only been given the description that the student was male and difficult to understand over the phone.
The search continued for 45 minutes until it was considered a lost cause. Shen was not found until his roommate returned home to their apartment later in the day.
At the age of 28, Shen was working on completing his doctorate degree in Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems with a focus on interdicting interdependent networks. In a letter sent out to the RPI community from the Office of the President, they remembered Shen’s contribution via his award-winning paper from 2018 entitled “Land / Maritime Borders and Critical Infrastructure Protection Track.”
Soon after his death, Shen’s autopsy showed that he had died from Influenza A - H1N1, a rare strain of the flu.
Shen’s death comes amidst a time of widespread fear surrounding the flu. According to the US Centers for Disease Control, the 2019-2020 flu season has been the worst in the past decade with 29 million cases and 16,000 deaths already reported — not to mention the heightened fear about the coronavirus outbreak that is dominating the global media currently.
There is no doubt that Shen’s presence at RPI will be remembered, especially in his field of research. One of his professors, Thomas Sharkey, wrote in the college newspaper that “[Shen] used his tremendous mathematical mind to create new methods to disrupt the networks of transnational criminal organizations, a truly noble cause…I believe that the legacy of his research is that it will make the world a better place.”