Karina Yusim

Forever in Our Hearts

Karina Yusim

July 19th 1971- January 26th 2021

It is with great sadness and heavy hearts that we announce the passing of Karina Yusim. Karina was the dearly beloved wife of Alexandre Chigaev, mother of Michael A. Chigaev (19) and Isaac N. Chigaev (12), daughter, sister, aunt and niece. She peacefully passed away in her sleep in her house in Santa Fe on Tuesday, January 26th at 11:15 AM, after years long battle with rare cancer.

The funeral service took place at Rivera Family Memorial Gardens Cemetery, 417 Rodeo Rd, Santa Fe, NM 87505 on January 28th at 11:45 AM. The memorial service (Shivah) for Karina Yusim was conducted via Zoom on January 28th at 9:00 PM MT, led by Rabbi Neil from the Temple Beth Shalom for Santa Fe, NM.

Karina was born in Moscow, Russia on July 19, 1971 in the family of Samuil Yusim and Marina Yusim (Novak). She was the eldest of two daughters. Her sister is Rimma Sherman (Yusim). Karina started her undergraduate education in the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT). In the former Soviet Union, women were discouraged to apply to this elite predominantly male institution, but Karina persisted and succeeded. In 1993, she moved to Israel. There, she studied at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where she received MS in Applied Mathematics (in 1995) and Ph.D. degree in Theoretical Biology (in 2000) under the guidance of Prof. Lee Segel, one of the founding fathers of Mathematical Biology. In 2000, she moved to the United States and decided to join Dr. Bette T. Korber’s group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the world leaders in the field of vaccine development.

Dr. Karina Yusim has left a great scientific legacy. For the last several years, she was leading the HIV Immunology Database project, contributed to the development of vaccine for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the hepatitis C virus (HCV), and most recently COVID-19. She authored dozens of scientific publications and was awarded multiple US patents. In 2017, she received an Appreciation Award from the Secretary of the US Department of Energy for the participation in Ebola Task Force Team. In 2020, she was presented with the Certificate of Recognition for 20 years of Dedicated Service from the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Karina was kind, loving, generous and compassionate. She helped many people without asking for anything in return. She adored her family and was extremely proud of the accomplishments of her two wonderful sons. Her eldest is now a freshman at Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley.  

Karina was also a very strong woman and a true fighter. After her devastating diagnosis in the fall of 2018, she had every right to become withdrawn and depressed. Instead, she lived every moment to the fullest, and her disease could not change her. Until the end she was always kind, loving and graceful. We will miss her, and she is forever in our hearts.

Memorial campaign for Karina Yusim can be found at: https://gofund.me/37e79c3c