« Update: Under a spell: Scrabblers battle here today | Today | Senior sports competition coming to Rhode Island »

May 9, 2008

Former Brown grad, Watson fellow dies in Afghanistan

A Brown University graduate and former visiting fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies has died while working in Afghanistan, according to a spokeswoman at the Watson Institute.

Michael Vinay Bhatia, who graduated in 1999, was working as a social scientist in Afghanistan in consultation with the U.S. Defense Department, according to the institute's Web site.

The Web site didn't have any details on the cause of his death.

Bhatia, of Medway, Mass., was a doctoral candidate at Oxford University, according to his biography on that school’s Web site. A magna cum laude graduate of Brown in international relations, he was a fellow at the Watson Institute from July 2006 to June 2007.

Bhatia had done humanitarian work in areas of conflict across the world, including in East Timor, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, where he interviewed hundreds of combatants for his dissertation: “The Mujahideen: A study of Combatant Motives in Afghanistan, 1978 to 2005.”

The author of several books, Bhatia was also a photographer and has published photos from his essay "Shooting Afghanistan -- Beyond the Conflict" on the Globalist Web site.

Frederick Melo, a fellow Brown University alumnus and Bhatia’s former roommate, called Bhatia brilliant, but without the sharp edges.

“He had heart. He was rarely not smiling, not laughing, not recognizing the beauty in people and in the world,” Melo said in an e-mail.

“I love him and I miss him and I can’t stop crying. The world is such a colder place without him.”

Posted by Brandie Jefferson  at 10:43 AM | Permalink

Comments

Post a comment

Please be civil. Vicious comments, personal attacks and profanity won't be published. Name and email are required; email address will not publish.

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)