KOTA KINABALU: Melancholy filled the air at Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) Psychology and Education Faculty here yesterday when over a hundred UMS staff and students gathered in a memorial ceremony to remember passengers on board Malaysian Airlines MH17 which took the lives of 298 people last month, including a lecturer from the faculty, Ng Shi Ing or Jessie.
“Jessie’s office in UMS is still untouched until today. UMS has lost one lecturer who is truly irreplaceable,” dean of the faculty, Prof Dr Ismail Ibrahim told the ceremony.
Jessie Ng, who was 33 years old, lost her life when was on her way home from Antwerp, Belgium after presenting a paper on Computer Assisted English Learning, which she co-wrote with her best friend and research partner, Dr Lee Kean Wah.
Her one-year-old son, Benjamin, and her sister-in-law Elisabeth Ng Lye Ti were also on the same flight which ended in tragedy the world will not be able forget, especially so for Jessie’s husband, Lee Vee Weng.
Ismail further added by saying: “Jessie, who was the second child out of six siblings to a government-pensioner father, Ng Pae Soon, 67, and a teacher mother, Tan Ah Chin, 62, always looked happy and friendly for as long as I knew her.
“Jessie’s mother, whom I met recently in Johor, told me that she lost two daughters in the plane.”
The dean also listed out Jessie’s achievements in her career. She graduated from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and became a lecturer at UMS on September 19, 2011.
“For less than three years, Jessie was already involved in several research projects that were worth more than RM480,000 in which five projects were completed.
“From the research projects, Jessie and her partners got five gold medals in a PEREKA UMS competition in 2011, and one gold medal at national-level, at the International Invention and Technology Exhibition (ITEX) 2013 with the invention of a creative personality analyser.
“She had also won a bronze medal at the International Trade Fair Ides Invention New Products (iENA) 2013 in Nuremberg, Germany with her invention of Creative and Innovative English Language Teaching Through Digital Story Telling.
“In a very brief span of three years, she produced five journal articles and more than ten articles which were uploaded on Prosiding. She was also involved in national and international conferences, such as in Ahmenabad India, Vietnam, Thailand, Beijing China, Taiwan and lastly, the University of Antwerp, Belgium, where the tragedy occurred,” Ismail said.
While Elisabeth was reunited with their family in Muar, along with 19 others who finally came home 36 days after the tragedy, Jessie and Ben’s fate are, unfortunately, still unknown.
“All we know is that, through conversation with her husband Lieutenant Commander Lee Vee Weng, who is an officer with the Royal Malaysian Navy submarine unit based in Sepanggar, her body has been identified and is coming home tomorrow. We can only hope the same for her son,” he said, yesterday.
Also present at the ceremony were Minister of Community Development and Consumer Affairs Datuk Jainab Ahmad Ayid and deputy vice-chancellor, Prof. Madya Dr Ismail Ali.
Elsewhere in Sabah, the Hyatt Regency Kinabalu staff also gathered at their hotel to mourn while watching a live telecast and later threw flowers into the sea.