Jessica Sachs, class of 2001, and a current UMass employee, Christoffer M. Carstanjen, were victims of the assault. The losses left the community stunned.
"When I told faculty members that we had lost Jessica, on three separate occasions they recalled her infectious smile," said James Smith, the chair of the UMass accounting department, in which Sachs was a major. "She was very connected, very engaged, very community-oriented, just wonderful to work with."
Sachs, 22, died aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which struck the North Tower first. Carstanjen, 33, was a passenger on United Airlines Flight 175, which impacted the South Tower.
"Jessica and I had some wonderful conversations about Christianity, Jesus, God," said one of her former advisors at UMass, Joan Spalding. "That to me is the solace in her death-that she was so firm in her belief in Jesus, God and eternity; her faith makes the imagining of her last moments more bearable."
Both Sachs and Carstanjen were en route to Southern California, where Sachs was traveling to work on an audit for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the accounting firm at which she was employed.
"I still remember how elated Jessica was that she had an opportunity to work with PWC, the largest public accounting firm in the world," said Smith. "That was what she sought and what she ended up achieving."
Sachs received her degree from the Isenberg School of Management, where she distinguished herself during her senior year as both an officer of the accounting honors society, Alpha Beta Psi, and as a management teaching assistant for 25 incoming freshmen.
"She was open and generous, and she wasn't afraid to share herself and her feelings and her beliefs," said Spalding. "She would tell you what she thought; she wouldn't hold back, and she had a real hunger for knowledge. Beyond what she needed to know professionally, she wanted to know the world."
While at UMass, Sachs involved herself in various activities, many of which focused on her religious and accounting communities. She helped found Mercy House, an evangelical Christian community at UMass, and as an officer of Alpha Beta Psi she helped arrange community service projects, which included helping build a house for local residents through the Habitat for Humanity program.
"Jessica was sort of a constant, positive presence in all sorts of social, professional and service activities," said Smith. "She was always willing to take part in all of the things that [UMass] had to offer. She was such a big part of the community."
Mercy House held a service for Sachs on Monday. It also plans to raise funds for a living memorial in her honor.
"Jessica was an important discussion and dialogue leader inside and outside of class," said Dean Dennis Hannow, UMass's undergraduate dean and an advisor to Sachs. "She did everything she could to achieve her goals, and then this happened."
Both Sachs and Carstanjen were remembered at the UMass community remembrance last Friday.
"The confirmation that Christoffer was aboard [Flight 175] adds the piercing pain of familiarity to the profound sadness that his UMass family members are experiencing," UMass Chancellor Marcellette G. Williams said in a statement.
"Christoffer had a fine sense of humor and was a wonderfully lively person," Harlan Sturm, associate dean of the UMass College of Humanities and Fine Arts, said in a statement. "His work was extremely beneficial to the College, and his death is a real loss."
Carstanjen worked in the Office of Information Technologies (OIT) at UMass, where he acted as the liaison with the school of humanities and fine arts, providing personal support and assisting the school in the direction of its technology. In addition to these duties and doing research projects and consulting, he aided students personally with technical problems.
A degree recipient from UMass's University Without Walls program, Carstanjen worked for Northfield Mount Hermon School as a Macintosh specialist, library proctor and advisor to the student computer group "Geeks for Electrical Engineering and Computer Science" (GEECS) prior to his employment at UMass. He planned to meet his girlfriend in San Diego and vacation up the California coast, touring on his prized Honda PC 800 motorcycle, with a group of fellow aficionados of that model of motorcycle.
"[Carstanjen] put a very friendly, a very affable and upbeat face on what can often be a bureaucratic process," said his immediate supervisor in the OIT, Michael Gilbert. "He was especially good at helping people who were intimidated by technology to overcome their fears. More than that-he was a good friend to all of us here."
"Christoffer was a very avid motorcyclist, as well as a fan of Morris dancing, a type of English country dancing he did regularly," said Gilbert. "He lived up in Turner's Falls in a house he built by himself; he was an outstanding individual, and we're all going to miss him."
Carstanjen's family plans a service for him later this month. "Christoffer's sense of the human dimension of technology is one of the many enduring gifts he has given us," said Williams. "To him and to his family we say, 'Thank you.' His life has made ours the richer."
Also among confirmed UMass losses were alumni Tara Shea Creamer (1993), Peter Hashem (1983) and Thomas N. Pecorelli (1992).