Friends, family remember Wharton alum killed in Taliban attack

1990 Wharton graduate and science and development expert Paula Kantor was killed in a Taliban attack on a guesthouse in Kabul, Afghanistan on May 13. She was 46.

Kantor, who studied economics at Penn, was staying at the Park Palace Hotel when the Taliban stormed it in a siege that killed 14 people. Kantor’s friend Christine Okali said in an emailed statement that Kantor was the only American citizen killed in the attack.

While Kantor was staying in the hotel, she was not actually inside the hotel when the attack began, Okali said. The hotel was stormed by several gunmen who placed the entire building under siege and held dozens hostage. 

“She had gone out for a meal with her colleagues at the Institute established by the US Government and where Paula had previously worked," Okali said. "Paula died on entering the hotel when she returned from her dinner appointment."

After graduating from Penn, Kantor went on to receive a masters degree from the University of Sussex and a PhD at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. It was during her time at Chapel Hill, where she had been pursuing an academic career in economics, that Kantor’s mother, Barbara Kantor, said her daughter’s life changed.

“She took a group trip to India and she saw all of this poverty that people here just can’t even imagine. It quite literally changed her life, and she devoted the rest of her life to this work overseas,” Kantor said.

Kantor became a prominent expert in international development and gender issues. Her work took her to remote corners of the world including Egypt, Malaysia, and Bangladesh. She focused primarily on improving life for women and families in the community she served.

In May, she was working on a project involving wheat production with the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit. At the time of her death, she was getting ready to start a new project in Islamabad, her mother said.

Her mother remembers her as a passionate, driven and hard-working woman. “She was a doer. She didn’t want to sit there and talk about what could be done — she wanted to go out and do it,” Kantor said.

Shortly before her death, her mother said Kantor spent some time with her parents in the United States. “She was here for a whole three weeks — that was very unusual. Typically, she was never home for more than four or five days,” she said.

While Kantor’s work ethic and multiple projects kept her busy, her mother still remembers her daughter beyond her legacy. “Even with all of the people’s she’s touched and the great work she’s done, to us, she was just Paula,” she said.

Since her death, the University of Sussex has begun a named scholarship in Kantor’s name, and the organizations she worked for will continue their projects overseas.

Her death has come as a shock to many. "I am still finding it hard to get used to the fact that we will not get together again," Okali said. 

Kantor’s mother remembered some final words from one of her friends and colleagues: “Paula was exactly where she was supposed to be. She wasn’t in the wrong place; violence was.”

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