The University of Denver community is mourning the deaths of two students.

According to the university, senior Sarah E. McConnell, 20, was found in her off campus apartment Feb. 6.

Steve Ireland, an investigator at Denver Office of the Cornoner, said the coroner’s office still does not know the cause of death and is waiting the results of a toxicology report.

Amy Niebling, 29,a DU graduate, was killed Feb. 3 in Afghanistan in an airplane crash. A snowstorm is blamed for the crash.

She was in Afghanistan working for the Massachusetts-based Management Services for Health for the, which provides international health aid. She had recently earned her degree from the Graduate School of International Studies.

McConnell was an international studies major and a history minor. She took International Studies Professor Arthur Gilbert’s Costa Rica class in 2002, where Gilbert got to know her.

“At that time she was the youngest person in the course and filled with energy and enthusiasm,” he said. “She was a very caring human being with great interest in doing good in the world.”

McConnell’s funeral was last Friday, where her friends and family gathered to remember her. Her mother, Judith Lightfield, spoke of McConnell.

“She is timeless in my heart, timeless in my mind and timeless in my love,” she said.

Jacob McConnell, Sarah’s older brother, said that her greatest aspiration was to change the world in some positive way.

“Seeing all these people here, she accomplished that,” he said. “The smallest changes make the biggest differences.”

Sarah’s father, Michael, said that he recently found out things about her from her friends that he should have known before.

“I found out 20-year-old girls know a lot of things that father’s probably shouldn’t know,” he joked.

McConnell was a person of many contradictions, her father said. “She was wise beyond her years, but also a kid who loved to be a kid.”

“I should have gone first,” Michael McConnell said, adding, as if he were speaking to Sarah, “I know you’ll work out the confusion and when you do, maybe you’ll come to all of us in a dream and work out our final contradiction, how do we hang on to you and let you go?”

Sarah’s funeral was held at the Methodist United Church on Belleview Avenue in Greenwood Village. About 200 friends and family attended.

She was buried at Fairmount Cemetery.

The family invited those who attended to an open house after the funeral.

Friends also remembered Nielbling’s generosity.

Jodi Fischer, Niebling’s former classmate, said she will miss Niebling, her giving spirit and her dedication to her work.

“It’s difficult to accept that such a vivacious and compassionate person was forced to cut her time short,” Fischer said.

“It’s particularly tragic when an individual looses her life when dedicated to such worthy work. Her death is sobering to all of us who work in this line of work. The risks we take are part of the allure and I wouldn’t change it for anything, but it’s simply a shame,” Fischer said.

“I will forever miss her and what she stands for, and my heart goes out to her family, husband and all those close to her,” she added.

Niebling is survived by her husband, Andrew Meeks, also a recent DU graduate.