MUNCIE, Ind. -- A Ball State University music graduate was among the dozen Americans killed in Friday’s bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.

Uttamlal "Tom" Shah, confirmed in news reports as one of the casualties of the explosion, received a master’s degree from Ball State in 1983 and a doctorate in music history in 1987, with Philip Jackson as his doctoral committee chair.

On campus, Shah studied jazz history and performance, trumpet performance, and history and musicology, and he was an assistant to Larry McWilliams, director of the Ball State School of Music’s jazz ensembles. Shah had come to Ball State after graduating from the Berklee School of Music in 1981.

"Tom was a bright, hard-working graduate student and an effective assistant with our jazz program," said Kirby Koriath, Ball State’s coordinator of graduate programs in music. "We were very proud of Tom and his accomplishments."

After graduating from Ball State, Shah responded to an advertisement for service with the national government, Koriath said. Shah was hired after rigorous screening and apparently continued to advance professionally.