Sayan was an outstanding and incredibly successful scholar and a strong advocate for supporting STEM at the university and more broadly. He led or co-led many wonderfully productive initiatives here at Duke (including large multidisciplinary grant proposals, internal efforts like spearheading a Bass Connections team, and service spanning many departments). And he was a fun person with whom to chat. We all hoped we’d still be able to continue to work with him even after he moved, and his loss is tragically felt internationally.