Silke Jasso
A young man with a brilliant mind abruptly ended his life trying to accomplish a senseless stunt.
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Nicholas Paggi, a 2015 Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, died Wednesday when he fell as he tried to climb the roof of the domed Barker Engineering Library, authorities and family members said, the New York Post reported.
An accomplished computer programmer from Bayville, N.J., Paggi was with roommates who were still graduate students at MIT when he attempted the stunt. His body was recovered from bushes alongside the campus landmark. Paggi’s death is being considered an accident by authorities.
“He came down the side of one of the roofs, came across the front and slipped going back up the other side,” Paggi’s mother, Helga Paggi, told CBS in Boston from her home in Toms River, N.J.
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According to his brother, Alex, who talked to the Post, Paggi and his friends were trying to climb to a lower ledge of the building.
“It was raining, and he slipped,” Alex Paggi told the newspaper. “We believe after talking with his friend that they decided to go just for something to do and not to one-up anyone.”
The dome he was climbing is the “Great Dome” of MIT’s Barker Engineering Library. Students refer to it as “The Center of the Universe,” and it is frequently the target of pranksters intent on “hacking the dome” by hanging banners from it and other objects.
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The Paggi family set up a GoFundMe fundraiser with the of establishing a scholarship in his honor at the Monsignor Donovan High School in Toms River where Paggi was the 2011 Valedictorian.
The family of the 24-year-old MIT grad who died on campus this week is raising money for a scholarship in his name. https://t.co/itTLtsWxtV
— Spencer Buell (@SpencerBuell) April 30, 2017
According to MIT’s student newspaper, according to thetech.com, Paggi graduated with degrees in computer science and physics. He was working as a software engineer at Ab Initio Software in Lexington, Mass.
“Nick was well-read, had a great sense of humor, and I always enjoyed having conversations with him, discussing the future of technology and artificial intelligence,” MIT research scientist Rich Fletcher told the student paper. Fletcher called Paggi a “brilliant programmer.”
“The world has lost a kind soul and great thinker,” Fletcher said.
