University of Alberta Arts student Isaak Kornelsen, 21, died Monday morning after being hit by a cement truck while
riding his bicycle on Whyte Avenue near 101 Street.
Kornelsen was working on a double major in philosophy and science, technology and society (STS), an
interdisciplinary field in the Faculty of Arts.
Professor Nathan Kowalsky taught Kornelsen in a philosophy class and an STS class and said he was
“a wonderful guy” and “absolutely outstandingly brilliant.”
“Every once in a while you get a student and you go, ‘Wow, this person needs to go on in his field,’ he’s that kind of
bright light,” Kowalsky said.
“He was one of those people you just love to hang out with, love to chat with, every time you saw him you just
smiled.”
“It’s funny because I’ll chat with my colleagues and they’ll say ‘Hey, I’ve got this really brilliant student,’ and we go
‘Hey, it’s the same one!’ that was Isaak,” Kowalsky said.
“He would have been in the top one per cent of the students I’ve taught.”
Kornelsen was also an accomplished athlete and won several track and field running competitions
in high school. He was part of the U of A’s track and field team, where he won a bronze medal in the 4X800m relay
and finished sixth in the 600m race at the Canada West championships in 2010.
Glen Playfair coached Kornelsen in high school and university, both through the U of A and Edmonton Thunder,
a track and field club in the city.
“He was a very talented athlete. He had won the provincial high school 800 meter championships,
and he also won the high school prestigious track meet called the Harry Jerome track and field meet in Vancouver, in
the 1,500 meter, so he was one of the top juniors in the country and had a very promising future,” Playfair said.
“He was quiet, gentle, very polite, an extremely nice person, you couldn’t ask for a nicer person.”
“In December he was going to be finished his degree and he was going to take some time and travel,” Playfair said.
A memorial service will be held on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. at McKernan Baptist Church.