UA Student Killed By Boyfriend Recalled For Brilliance, Passion

TUCSON, AZ — Genevieve Comeau, a promising young scientist and doctoral candidate at the University of Arizona, approached her research on the mosquito-borne Zika virus as she did everything else in life — with curiosity, energy and even humor. The 25-year-old was shot and killed by her boyfriend earlier this month in what police describe as a murder-suicide.

About 100 people gathered Thursday for a candlelight vigil on the UA’s main campus in Tucson, where Comeau had quickly pivoted her research on malaria to dig into the Zika virus during the outbreak in 2015, the Arizona Daily Star reported.

Comeau, a National Science Foundation Research Fellow, an elite honor awarded to fewer than 10 percent of those who apply for it, was extraordinarily bright. She also had a “wry wit,” said Michael Riehle, one of her doctoral mentors, the Arizona Daily Star reported.

For example, when she was working with Zika-contaminated mosquitos in a containment facility, she posted a sign on the door that read, “Zika infections — abandon hope all ye who enter here! (Please don’t come in.)”

“Genevieve was an outstanding young scientist, with a wry wit and outgoing personality that always lightened the mood in the lab,” Riehle said at the vigil. “We are very grateful for the opportunity we had to work with her.”

It was her passion for life that made her such a promising scientist, classmate Maureen Brophy said, according to a report to news station KGUN.

“In order to be a good scientist you need to have a lot of passion and that passion is Genevieve’s middle name,” Brophy said. “She was not only a wonderful scientist and very critical thinker and brilliant, she was excited to share what she knew and in a way made you feel as smart as she was.”

In a tribute on Comeau on the obituary site Legacy.com, Chris Martin noted she had “no patience for pretension or insincerity,” but was a wonderful friend, celebrating “everything her friends built, created, or accomplished, and then motivated us to go further.”

“Her wish was to see each of us realize our dreams, and she was at her happiest when we exceeded our expectations and set new personal records,” Martin wrote. “Never one to allow complacency, Genevieve was a roaring wind at our backs.”

Through her research, Comeau was “making a valuable contribution to fundamental science as well as to the control of vector borne diseases, Molly Hunter, chair of the graduate and interdisciplinary entomology and insect science program, told The Daily Star.

Comeau wrote in an op-ed in the online journal Terrain.org that she wanted her work to inform public health workers and help them say “one step ahead of the steadily increasing outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases, of which Zika is only the latest.”

She wrote three papers on her Zika research, and her mentors are publishing a fourth examining whether female mosquitoes can transmit Zika to their offspring. Based on her scientific accomplishments, she will be awarded her doctorate posthumously.

It’s unclear why Ethan Lindauer, 31, a software engineer, shot and killed Comeau and then turned a gun on himself at their home on March 5. There had been no history of domestic violence, Comeau’s friends and family said.

“We do not know why Ethan would ever harm Genevieve and may never understand why it happened,” Comeau’ family said in a statement after her death.