Christine Mirzayan had a promising future as a biochemist before she was bludgeoned to death in Georgetown. The daughter of Iranian immigrants, Mirzayan had completed her doctorate from the University of California, San Francisco, and won a prestigious fellowship at the National Research Council for young scientists.
She had grown increasingly interested in the role of science in society and looked forward to a career that would allow her to use her scientific knowledge to address political and social problems.
On the night of Aug. 1, 1998, the last week of her summer fellowship program, the 28-year-old Mirzayan was on her way home from a barbecue in Georgetown when she vanished. The next day her body was found in some woods off Canal Street near her Georgetown University dormitory. She suffered severe blows to the head and an apparent sexual assault.
Her killer was never found.
Mirzayan’s death later became linked to the killings of two other California interns. When intern Chandra Levy went missing in the 2001, people began to look for a connection to Mirzayan’s murder and to the death of 28-year-old Joyce Chiang, whose body was found along the Potomac River in 1999.
Police found no link among the three cases. Levy’s killer was convicted of her murder last year and sentenced to 60 years. Chiang and Mirzayan’s killings remain unsolved.
People with information on these or any unsolved homicides can email D.C. police at [email protected].
The National Academies have created a scholarship in Mirzayan’s name. The Christine Mirzayan Science & Technology Policy Graduate Fellowship provides graduate students with opportunities to engage in analysis that eventually drives U.S. technology and science policy.
