U-Chicago will grant Ph.D. to student slain in January

CHICAGO (AP) — The University of Chicago will grant a doctorate degree to a student who was killed during a series of shootings last winter.

Colleagues got access to key documents in Yiran Fan’s Dropbox account and successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation about bank behaviors and risky lending, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

“The University of Chicago has very rigorous standards, and I want to assure anyone that the standards are not being lowered for Yiran,” said Nishant Vats, a friend and fellow student. “If anyone deserves getting a Ph.D., it’s absolutely Yiran.”

Fan, 30, a native of Beijing, was randomly killed while sitting in a car in a parking garage in January, the first of seven people, from Chicago to Evanston, to be shot by a gunman, police said. Five died.

“He was an amazing student and was really talented,” professor Veronica Guerrieri said.

The degree will be awarded Saturday. Fan had a bachelor’s degree in finance from Peking University and a master’s degree in financial engineering from the University of Cambridge.