Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov ’29 was a rare gem of a person. He was incredibly smart, yet he never bragged about his achievements. He would strike up a conversation with anyone, even if he had never met them before. He was constantly seeking out new experiences, books and friends.
On Dec. 13, Umurzokov was one of the two students killed in a mass shooting that occurred in Barus and Holley Room 166 during a review session for ECON 0110: “Principles of Economics.” Umurzokov, who was not enrolled in the course, had only attended the review session to join a few friends in the class, according to Joseph McGonagle ’29.
“He just tagged along to be nice,” said McGonagle, who had brunch with Umurzokov right before he left for the review session.
During that brunch, Umurzokov told McGonagle how excited he was to go home for break and see his sisters. “His parents were going to Mecca, so he would have had the house to himself,” McGonagle explained.
McGonagle described how deeply Umurzokov cared about his family. “In particular, he had a niece, and he would always show me photos,” McGonagle said. “He’d be like, ‘Isn’t she so cute?’”
Umurzokov is remembered by many of his friends for his sense of humor. “In any kind of situation, he would be able to make you laugh,” said Miriam Davison ’29, a senior staff writer at The Herald and friend of Mukhammad’s. “It was probably one of the most distinct parts about him.”
But most of all, he was “super caring,” McGonagle said. He treated every aspect of his life with care — his schoolwork, hobbies and friendships. Umurzokov was studying biochemistry and molecular biology with the aspiration to become a neurosurgeon. But his intellectual interests were diverse, and several friends mentioned his passion for philosophy.
Jack DiPrimio GS, a post- Magazine contributor, met Umurzokov at a legal philosophy lecture, during which both DiPrimio and Umurzokov had asked the professor a question.
“He really liked Mukhammad’s question,” DiPrimio said. “(The professor) did not like my question, and so in the reception after, Mukhammad came up to me and introduced himself. (Mukhammad) was like, ‘Hey, man, he really put you through the ringer.’”
The two exchanged Instagram profiles, and a friendship blossomed from there.
With his broad yet deep curiosity, Umurzokov was a “quintessential Brown University student,” DiPrimio said. Since Umurzokov was “very humble” and “never bragged,” DiPrimio only found out about many of Umurzokov’s accomplishments while reading the news after Dec. 13, he said.
Umurzokov’s intellectualism was a core part of many of his friendships. Davison recalled one chilly night on Wriston Quadrangle when she, Umurzokov and a few of their friends stayed up chatting about “big things and small things,” from trips to India Point Park to George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”
Davison also described how Umurzokov “was always eager to try out new things, to talk to people, to call random numbers, to learn in classes that he wasn’t a part of.”
From the beginning of his time on College Hill, Umurzokov was committed to fully appreciating the college experience. Percy Unger ’26, his Bruno Leader, wrote in a message to The Herald that Umurzokov participated “wholeheartedly” in group activities while also “not taking himself too seriously.” Umurzokov’s welcoming nature “allowed everyone to open up.”
From then on, Unger would stop to chat with Umurzokov when the two ran into each other, and those conversations often ended up lasting “for the better part of an hour.” Umurzokov was “endlessly delighted to be (at Brown) and to be learning and forging friendships,” Unger added.
“He reminded me to be grateful for every moment of these four years,” Unger wrote. “I am heartbroken that he will not get to cherish every moment of his own experience.”
According to McGonagle, there was nothing Umurzokov loved more than spending time with his friends — hanging out with people was “his number one hobby.” Friends described late night chats in Keeney Quadrangle’s Arnold Lounge and brief dining hall encounters that turned into much longer conversations as some of their most meaningful memories with him.
Davison first met Umurzokov at the Sharpe Refectory early in the semester, and their conversation “immediately” went beyond surface-level introductions. “You know, you don’t especially intend to spend that much time in the Ratty with a stranger,” she said. “But he was very easy to talk to.”
Umurzokov was “very extroverted,” McGonagle said, in addition to being “really funny” and “very clever.”
“He had so many friends on campus,” McGonagle said, “it was unreal.” Even if Umurzokov did not know someone, McGonagle recalled, he would go up and talk to them anyway. When he wasn’t studying, he was messaging people to see if they wanted to grab a meal or just hang out.
Talia Sherman ’26 first met Umurzokov after he walked up to her and a group of friends on the main green and started talking. Afterwards, Umurzokov referred to Sherman’s group as his “senior friends,” she wrote.
“I’ve never met someone so fearless and driven in their confidence,” Sherman told The Herald. “I wouldn’t have known him if it weren’t for how much he was willing to put himself out there and meet everyone.”
Astrid Albujar Hervias ’29, who met Umurzokov through a mutual friend and lived on his floor in the Archibald-Bronson dorm, told The Herald that “you did not need to have known (him) for years” for Umurzokov “to trust you with his life stories, his feelings, his dreams.”
“It was so easy to be his friend,” she added.
Another friend, Conor Sims ’29 recounted his “late-night chats” with Umurzokov, “talking and laughing until 3 a.m.”
Umurzokov once accidentally interrupted a date Sims was on, but he left tactfully as soon as Sims covertly showed him a message that just said “I’m on a date.”
“If I knew this would happen I would’ve blown off my date and hung with him,” Sims wrote in a message to The Herald.
The memory of the last time Albujar Hervias saw Umurzokov is “vivid.” While walking back to her dorm, she saw Umurzokov standing outside of the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center in the cold, waiting for a friend. She wrote that this memory encapsulates him as a person: “always there for a friend, even in the cold, even late at night.”
McGonagle remembered sitting in his New Pembroke dorm, being upset about a grade, when Umurzokov walked from his south campus dorm in Keeney Quad up to McGonagle’s north campus dorm.
“He knocked on my door, and was like, ‘Let’s go to Jo’s,’” McGonagle said. So, the two walked all the way back down to south campus, picked up food from Josiah's and ate together in the Arnold Lounge, talking until around 3 a.m. when McGonagle decided to go back to his dorm.
“He was like, ‘Oh, I’ll walk you,’ and so we started walking,” McGonagle said. About halfway to New Pembroke, Umurzokov “was like, ‘Yeah, it’s really cold, I think I’m gonna turn around’” to go back to Keeney Quad. But then, “less than a minute later, he goes, ‘Wait ... I’m just gonna walk with you instead,’” McGonagle recalled. Umurzokov ended up walking McGonagle all the way to his New Pembroke dorm before walking back to Keeney Quad himself, despite the freezing temperatures.
The day before Umurzokov’s death, DiPrimio said he received a text from Umurzokov about his weekend plans. “He was really excited to see his friends,” Diprimio said. “He loved people.”
DiPrimio regrets not having responded to that text. “The last text I sent him was ‘Where are you?’ and he was already dead,” he said. DiPrimio is “still in shock.”
Many of Umurzokov’s friends said they wish they had spent more time with him.
“The entire world needs to know that he impacted so many people in our community in a positive way,” Albujar Hervias wrote. “He deserved to walk through the Van Wickle gates twice. He deserved to see the first snowfall” of his time at Brown.
“I have been moved by his current and former classmates’ descriptions of him as someone who generously shared his intelligence, humor and kindness with all those who knew him,” President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 wrote in an email to the Brown community.
“He was a big dreamer,” Davison said. “He was a big doer.”
In a text message from Umurzokov that McGonagle shared with The Herald, Umurzokov wrote: “I’d like to think I’m a net positive on the world, but yeah.”
McGonagle replied: “You definitely are.”
Maya Nelson is a university news and metro editor covering undergraduate student life as well as business and development. She’s studying English on the nonfiction track and loves to read sci-fi and fantasy in her free time. She also enjoys playing guitar, crocheting and spending an unreasonable amount of time on NYT Spelling Bee.
