Michael Tsan Ty, 28, Roslindale
Michael Tsan Ty, 28, a physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital, was driving on Boylston Street wearing his green hospital scrubs when the scaffolding fell and crushed his Honda. The freak accident ended a budding medical career for the award-winning student from Atherton, Calif.
Though only in his 20s, Ty was using computers and other technology to research how the brain works and discover new methods to repair brain damage. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Medical School, and won a fellowship to study ethics and theology at Vatican City for a year. He chose to study at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, an elite training ground for aspiring biomedical engineers and physician-scientists from both universities.
On Harvard's website, Ty said he would always remember raising his window blinds in Vanderbilt Hall, a residence for medical students, and watching classmates unfurl a 40-foot banner from a nearby academic building, trumpeting his school: ''HST."
Mriganka Sur, a neuroscience professor and head of the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, said Ty was a quick and creative thinker who labored for two years in his laboratory.
Neighbors said Ty also had a life in Boston; he was married and had moved about a year ago to Roslindale.
''Michael was a tremendous student," Sur said. ''He was a very sweet, very considerate, very kind young man."
RAJA MISHRA, MATT VISER, MARIA SACCHETTI 