The Daily Californian BERKELEY, Calif. (U-WIRE) -- A University of California at Berkeley research assistant was found hanged in her University Village home in Albany Thursday in what police are calling an apparent suicide. UC Police found Irima Lisitski, 29, at 7:45 a.m. Thursday at her residence in University Village, a university-owned housing complex for married students and students with dependents. Police were alerted to the incident by a neighbor who saw the researcher's body through the window, UC police Capt. Bill Cooper said. By the time she was found, Lisitski had been dead for less than 12 hours, he said. At this point, the official cause of death has not been announced, said Michael Yost, a supervisor in the Alameda County coroners office. But he said the incident is being treated as a suicide. There is no indication of foul play, according to UC Police Sgt. Howard Hickman, who is supervising the investigation. Lisitski's family, who live in Haifa, Israel, have been contacted, authorities announced. A neighbor, who wished to remain anonymous, described Lisitski as "quiet." "She had difficulty speaking English. She stayed to herself," the neighbor said. Lisitski was a post-doctoral researcher in the Molecular and Cell Biology Department, according to the neighbor. Lisitski, who was originally from Russia, had been residing in Israel for the last seven years before coming to the United States, the neighbor said. Lisitski had only lived in University Village for nine days before she died, according to a resident advisor at the village, who wished to remain anonymous. Lisitski had been depressed before her death due, in part, to the fact that she was in a foreign environment, according to her neighbor. "We wish we could have helped her," she said. "She had difficulty adjusting. She was very depressed, but we had no idea how much." The neighbor said she thought Lisitski had also faced problems occurring in her former home, Israel, at the time of her death. According to International House Executive Director Joseph Lurie, who has dealt with two suicides by foreign students in the past year, the change in cultural environments has an effect on foreign students. "There are special vulnerabilities for foreign students because they are far from home, but that does not necessarily cause something like this," Lurie said. Lisitski had been divorced for three years and was allowed to stay in the village because she had an eight-year-old daughter, the neighbor said. The daughter was staying with her grandparents in Israel when the incident occurred, the neighbor said. Because the village houses students living with dependents, the university had been pressuring Lisitski to bring her daughter to the country to live with her, the neighbor added. The daughter was expected to join her mother shortly, she said. The death has prompted village officials to conduct outreach efforts within the complex in order to deal with the reactions of other residents.
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