FAMILY OF MINH-THI NGUYEN, MIT STUDENT AND RISING QUANTUM PHYSICS STAR, FILES LAWSUIT OVER FATAL TRUCK COLLISION
Published in Uncategorized on February 26, 2025
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Life of Minh-Thi “Mint” Nguyen Celebrated by Family and Loved Ones; Charles P. Blouin, Inc, Facing $30,000,000 Wrongful Death Lawsuit.
BOSTON, MA – FEBRUARY 26, 2025 – The family of 24-year-old Minh-Thi Nguyen, who was struck and killed by a box truck on June 21, 2024, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Charles P. Blouin, Inc, which owned and operated the truck that caused the fatal crash. The lawsuit was filed in Middlesex County Superior Court by J. Tucker Merrigan and Matthieu Parenteau of the law firm Sweeney Merrigan.
Minh-Thi, known to friends as “Mint” and family members as “Chip,” was in her third year at MIT studying for a PhD in physics. Remembered for her “unbreakable spirit” and boundless generosity, Minh-Thi was active in a variety of groups and had a gift for bringing people together. She was also a budding quantum physics prodigy who published multiple scholarly articles and was named a top-15 expert in the field of quantum computing in 2022.
J. Tucker Merrigan, managing partner, Sweeney Merrigan, said: “Minh-Thi’s tragic death is an immeasurable loss for her family, the scientific community, and the world. She is totally blameless. She followed the traffic laws, she stayed in her lane, and she was wearing a bike helmet. There needs to be accountability for the 10-ton box truck that failed to yield the right of way and robbed the world of a brilliant mind and huge heart.”
Following Minh-Thi’s death, hundreds of mourners gathered at a vigil at Cambridge City Hall and demanded more urgency from policymakers to protect cyclists on roadways. According to the Boston Globe, nine cyclists and 61 pedestrians were hit and killed by vehicles in Massachusetts in 2024.
Originally founded in South Boston, Charles P. Blouin Inc is an HVAC and sheet metal contractor now headquartered in New Hampshire and operating across New England. The company is a major contractor for Massachusetts and New Hampshire-based schools and hospitals, including Boston University, MIT, Dartmouth College, Mass General Hospital, Concord Hospital and St. Joseph’s Hospital.
Hieu Nguyen, Minh-Thi’s father, said: “I cannot find the words to describe my pain. Heartbroken, miserable, desperate, confused, empty, angry—all of these, yet none of them seem enough. My heart aches for my daughter, who worked tirelessly her entire life, striving for success, only to meet such an unfair and tragic end. I once imagined the words I would say at her wedding, never thinking I would one day have to speak at her funeral instead. She was intelligent, thoughtful, strong, and hardworking. I treasure every moment I shared with her—watching her speak her first words, write her first letters, solve her first math problem, and overcome her shyness. As she grew, she explored the world in ways I never could, attained successes that I dreamed myself but couldn’t do, which made me very proud. When she died, part of me died with her.”
Hoa Tran, Minh-Thi’s mother, said: “The whole family is still in shock. We are still not ready to accept the painful truth that you are no longer here with us, my sweet daughter. Every morning, your dad and I wake up to this reality, to this pain we must face, and we don’t know when we will ever come to terms with it. The first thing your dad and I ask each other every morning is whether we dreamed of you. But I still haven’t seen you—not even in a dream. Night after night, I lie there waiting for you to come. I long to see you as you were before so that I can hold you, care for you, and worry about you—even if it’s just in a dream. That’s the only thing I can still hope for. I yearn to talk to you, to text you. Every day, I still send you messages, though I know I’ll never get a reply. But I keep texting you anyway, as it eases the ache of missing you, even just a little. Whenever you need me, in any way, I will always be there for you, Chíp. I love you.”
Julia Nguyen, Minh-Thi’s younger sister, said: “The last night I had with Minh-Thi, we ate our mother’s homemade egg rolls and talked about the exciting summer ahead. For the first time in seven years, we were going to live under the same roof. But when I woke up the next day to the police knocking at the door, the future we worked for ceased to exist. I’ll never be able to be an aunt to her children or play the piano as she walks down the aisle. I’ll never be able to see her win a Nobel prize in physics. Each day, I open my eyes feeling her spirit within me, but guilt overcomes me as I realize that I have the chance to live another day, and Minh-Thi doesn’t. I remember her passion for life and adventure, her utter brilliance, and her unparalleled compassion for others. That’s what motivates me to get out of bed every day and not take anything for granted.”
Nick Krasnow, Minh-Thi’s boyfriend, said: “On one of our first trips, Minh-Thi and I drove to the shore. We were sitting in front of the waves and I suddenly heard her laugh, a forceful laugh that I would come to crave. I knew then that I loved Minh-Thi fiercely. I needed to be a part of the fascinating world she lived in. Minh-Thi taught me to be honest with myself, to embrace new experiences and people.This year, I will visit the place where we first discovered our love, but I’ll be alone.”
The Incident
According to the lawsuit, on June 21, 2024, at approximately 8:45 a.m., Minh-Thi was riding her bicycle on Hampshire Street in Cambridge, traveling southeast toward the intersection of Portland Street. She regularly took this route to her lab at MIT. She was in her bike lane, wearing a helmet, and following the rules of the road.
Minh-Thi intended to go straight through the intersection of Hampshire Street and Portland Street. As she approached the intersection of Hampshire Street and Portland Street, a Charles P. Blouin box truck took a right-hand turn from Hampshire Street onto Portland Street.
Minh-Thi had the right of way through the intersection, but the truck did not yield, cutting off her path of travel. Minh-Thi tried to avoid the truck but was struck and went underneath the vehicle. The truck’s driver did not stop until a bystander yelled and waved. She was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital where she was declared deceased at 9:25 a.m.
“She Made Us All Better”
Minh-Thi was born in Hanoi, Vietnam on Oct. 28, 1999. She later moved with her family to Amsterdam, New York and then California, where she attended Los Alamitos High School. There she founded Growing Up STEM, a mentorship program providing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) opportunities for young people.
Minh-Thi spent her sophomore year of high school researching astrophysics at Caltech. In her junior year, she researched quantum optics in a Siemens Summer Research Fellowship at Stony Brook University. As a senior, she researched plasma physics at Princeton University, her future alma mater, and graduated as valedictorian of her High School class.
Minh-Thi studied physics as an undergraduate at Princeton and earned certificates in Applied and Computational Mathematics, Statistics and Machine Learning, and Applications of Computing. Never one to sit still, she also led the Entrepreneurship Club and its IgniteSTEM team, was a member of the Cap & Gown Club, guided first-year students on backpacking trips, played rugby, was a peer academic advisor, performed in a production of The Vagina Monologues, and modeled for Fashion Speaks.
Before starting her Ph.D. program at MIT, Minh-Thi worked at a quantum computing startup and published a
“breakthrough” paper in the prominent physics journal PRX Quantum that has been cited more than a hundred times. Minh-Thi also held internships at the US Department of Energy, Stanford University, Hybrid Quantum Systems Group, HRL Laboratories, Convection Lab, Max Planck Institute, and was a D.E. Shaw Discovery Fellow.
As a Ph.D. student at MIT, Minh-Thi worked in Professor Paola Cappellaro’s Quantum Engineering Group in the Center for Ultracold Atoms, where she was widely regarded as a rising star in the physics community. The month of her death, she presented two papers on quantum gyroscopes at the 55th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics. One was published by Physical Review Applied, and the other by Physical Review Letters (PRL), the top physics journal in the world. In 2024, she received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Outside the laboratory, Minh-Thi was always busy, hosting dinner parties, participating in the Graduate Student Council and the Outing Club. She was an accomplished skier, marathon runner and alpine hiker.
In a piece titled “Total Effervescence,” a nod to Minh-Thi’s zest for life, Cappellaro told the Daily Princetonian that Minh-Thi’s passing was a tremendous loss for the scientific community: “She was not only super-smart, but also fearless in tackling new projects and challenges and always inventive. … Even more importantly, she was an overall amazing person, always a joy to interact with, generous with her friendship and mentorship. She made us all better.”
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