Editor’s note: This story includes mention of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, you can reach the national suicide and crisis lifeline by calling or texting 988 or by online chat at 988lifeline.org. Counselors at UChicago Student Wellness are also available by phone at (773) 834–3625, and the Therapist-on-Call can be reached for immediate support at (773) 702–3625.

Calista Lee was always bringing friends and family into conversations that stretched through the late hours of the night. 

Sometimes, the conversations would be about her favorite books, like William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, which she read at least a dozen times. At other times she would draw someone into long discussions about philosophy, capitalism, artificial intelligence, or her favorite music from the rock band Interpol. 

In a eulogy, her family shared that she once set up a cardboard sign with a friend on the quad, asking passersby to “come talk to us about anything.” On long car rides around Los Angeles, Lee would often ask her brother, Noah, to tell her everything he knew about a topic, idea, or place. 

“She would just sit down and have these long bouts of focus and just try to learn everything. She had all these lists of things, like topics that she would learn, or try to learn,” Noah Lee said. 

Lee took her own life on October 27 at 19 years old. She was a second-year in the College double-majoring in philosophy and economics with a specialization in business. She was also minoring in creative writing.

Lee was born in New York City in 2006. Even as a young child, “Calista [marched] to the beat of her own drum,” according to her mother, Heather Lee.

She attended Grace Church School in Manhattan through middle school and Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire for high school. During the pandemic, she moved with her family from New York City to Los Angeles. 

“She was always beautiful and smart,” her parents said. Above all, Lee shone as a writer. “She had the ability to write in a way that can make you cry,” said her father, Jonas Lee.  

Lee published more than a dozen essays and short stories, including “Under the Circus Lights,” “All Quiet on the Eastern Coast,” and “Death by Avalanche.” She also wrote many unpublished works, according to her parents.

“Though her life was brief, her words remain, shimmering with empathy and insight, with the impossible mixture of love and pain that defined her,” her family wrote in an eulogy. 

Lee was an active UChicago community member, founding the Applied AI student group to discuss artificial intelligence advances in different industries. She was also a member of UChicago’s Pi Beta Phi chapter, a starboard rower on UChicago’s crew team, and the “prank czar” of the Baker House Council in Woodlawn Residential Commons. 

“To say that Calista made an impact on our chapter, and the entire UChicago campus, would be an understatement; her bright light and undeniable energy touched the lives of so many people across our community,” UChicago’s Pi Beta Phi wrote in a statement to the Maroon. 

Lee jumped right into a varsity boat in her first ever race with the crew team last fall, according to women’s crew team captain Olivia Brett-Major. 

“On the water, she was a fast learner, a generous teammate, and a bold competitor… On land, Calista brought the same thoughtfulness and energy that she did to practice,” Brett-Major wrote to the Maroon. “We deeply cherish memories of long car rides, women’s squad sleepovers, and team dinners featuring Calista’s stories and laughter.” 

Early on in the school year, Lee helped host a talent show for Baker House. At the show, one of her sorority sisters, who asked to remain anonymous, remembered Lee pulling out her guitar to play “American Pie” by Don McClean while friends sang along. 

“It was moments like that where it was so clear to me how much Calista really cared about everyone, even the people she didn’t know well,” she wrote to the Maroon. 

Lee was a captivating presence in the classroom, said second-year Antonio Persi, who was taking The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence: Mind and Model with her this quarter. 

Lee would always use her classmates’ names in discussion when responding to their comments. When she didn’t know someone’s name, she would ask them to repeat it aloud so she could address them when speaking about the ideas they had presented. “I just loved it,” Persi said. “I’ve never met anyone who did that.”

It was always remarkable, he said, “how excited she was about life and how that sort of never really let her be tired.” Persi added that he will miss Lee’s presence at apartment dinners with friends. 

Noah Lee feels the loss of many small moments with his sister, like a game they often played together along 56th Street between Woodlawn Ave and University Ave. One sibling would close their eyes, spin around, and attempt to walk backwards, while the other guided them down the street using only words for directions. Noah Lee loved guiding his sister down the street. 

“She was my closest friend,” he said. “And I was hers.” 

A memorial service will be held in Lee’s honor at Grace Church in New York City on Saturday, November 22 at 11 a.m. ET. A virtual option will also be available. Guests can R.S.V.P. here.