Maria Birukova, a fourth-year graduate student in the MD-PhD program at the Stanford School of Medicine, died in a climbing accident near Bear Creek Spire in the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains. She was 26.

The accident occurred on Sept. 18 and was witnessed by her climbing partner, Ian Isaacson. Her body was recovered on Sept. 20 by members of the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office, Inyo Search and Rescue and the California Highway Patrol.

Birukova, an avid mountaineer and climber, earned a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering at Yale University. She came to Stanford in 2013 and was working in the laboratory of immunologist Paul Bollyky, MD, PhD. Earlier this year she was awarded a Bio-X Bowes graduate student fellowship in honor of her groundbreaking interdisciplinary research.

“Maria was one of our superstars,” said professor of medicine PJ Utz, MD, who directs Stanford’s Medical Scientist Training Program in which students work toward both a medical degree and a doctoral degree. “She had a background in engineering and an interest in chemistry, and we were very excited to welcome her into our program. But it was clear from the moment I met her that climbing was a major part of her life. In fact, she struggled to choose whether to attend Stanford or the University of Utah for her graduate training because in Utah the mountains are so close. We in the program are devastated that she won’t now be able to fulfill her other dream of becoming a physician-scientist.”