Margaret F. Nervegna, 29, worked at Draper Lab

MARGARET F. NERVEGNA

For Margaret Frances Nervegna, challenges were a necessary part of life. Usually, they were of her own making.

In attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she chose the engineering program she believed would make her work the hardest. As a long-distance runner and rower, she gravitated toward sports that pitted her performances not against competitors, but against her own past achievements.

"It was never really about winning or losing with her," said her brother, Louis of Andover. "It was always about establishing a new personal record or new personal best. This excellence that she strived for in her life was very much a personal thing."

When she was diagnosed with a brain tumor on Nov. 15, 2007, the nature of her challenges changed, but her approach remained the same.

"She was fighting it the whole way," said her fiance, Igor Belakovskiy of Cambridge. "She didn't just accept that these would be the statistics, and that was that. She did everything she could to beat it."

Ms. Nervegna, a software task leader and a senior member of the technical staff at the Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, died Oct. 28 at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., of complications associated with a brain tumor. She was 29 and had been hospitalized since Aug. 23.

Born in Scranton, Pa., Ms. Nervegna grew up in Archbald, Pa., were she was a member of Saint Thomas Aquinas Church and graduated from Scranton Preparatory School in 1997.

In high school, she ran varsity track and cross-country and was a member of the National Honor Society and an Advanced Placement scholar with distinction. Those achievements helped her earn admission to the top engineering programs in the country. She picked MIT, where two years earlier her brother had also entered the electrical engineering program.

At MIT, Ms. Nervegna carried on her passion for endurance sports as a member of the varsity track, cross-country, and rowing teams and was a member of conference championship teams in cross-country and rowing.

While a student, she met Belakovskiy, first through rowing and later through mutual friends, including one of Ms. Nervegna's roommates, whom Belakovskiy briefly dated. More than four years ago, the couple began to date.

A vegetarian since her early teens, Ms. Nervegna became a vegan while at MIT, according to her fiance.

"When she moved to Boston, she discovered there were such things as soy milk and soy ice cream, and to her it just made sense to complete the process" of cutting animal byproducts out of her lifestyle as well, Belakovskiy said.

She received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT in 2001 and became a member of Eta Kappa Nu, the academic honor society for those fields of study. In 2002, she completed a master's degree at MIT in the same subjects.

As a graduate student, she received a fellowship funded by the Draper Laboratory, which is known for developing advanced guidance systems used in submarine-based nuclear missiles and in the Apollo missions to the moon. At Draper, she did her master's thesis research on the design of new software guidance systems for autonomous underwater robots, according to her brother.

After graduation, she joined the laboratory full time and until earlier this year had continued her work on software design for underwater and space robotics projects for the Navy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

She also found an outlet to continue to run competitively in the Greater Boston Track Club, and began to participate in triathlons. During her career as a triathlete, she compiled more than 10 podium finishes, including finishing as the top female at the 2007 Hyannis Sprint 1 Triathlon.

A year ago, Ms. Nervegna began experiencing strange symptoms, including dizziness, nausea, and frequent hiccups, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor, her brother said. She began radiation treatments in Boston before researching hospitals and opting instead for advanced outpatient treatment at Duke University Medical Center every two months. Up until the summer, she continued to work and compete as well.

About two months ago, she and Belakovskiy became engaged.

"I figured I was running out of chances to ask her," Belakovskiy said.

At a funeral service in her hometown earlier this month, Ms. Nervegna's brother reflected on how struck he was by the fact that, in "29 short years, she lived a remarkably first-class life."

"Life was not one thing to Margaret. It was many things," he wrote in the text of his remarks. "The pie had many different slices, and each of them was just as important as any other. . . . She somehow figured out how to keep this balance in her life all through school and all throughout her career. And how she managed to do this is still somewhat of a mystery to me. It was perhaps her greatest trick."

In addition to her brother and fiance, Ms. Nervegna leaves her parents, Gino and Mary of Archbald, Pa., and her grandmother, Frances Nervegna of Scranton, Pa.

A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. tomorrow at Connors Family Retreat and Conference Center in Dover.