Miracle as doctors save seven-month-old baby after postdoctoral professor mother fatally hit in intersection

• Jennifer J. Young, 30, fatally struck by grey Acura in Houston
• Pronounced dead at hospital, but doctors managed to save her unborn child in emergency C-section
  
• Young taught mathematics at Rice University
  

By Beth Stebner

PUBLISHED: 18:23 EST, 20 June 2012 | UPDATED: 00:59 EST, 21 June 2012

A postdoctoral instructor who was seven months pregnant was struck and killed while crossing the street – but her baby miraculously survived.

Police identified the woman as 30-year-old Jennifer J. Young, who taught mathematics at Rice University in Houston.

Her child was delivered by emergency C-section and remains in critical condition.

Tragedy: Jennifer J. Young, a postdoctoral instructor at Rice University, was struck and killed at an intersection, but her seven-month-old child survived

Scene: She was hit by a grey Acura as she tried to cross near Main and Cambridge streets

Houston police said that Ms Young was crossing near the intersection of Main St and Cambridge around 9:20am, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Saved: Her child was saved through an emergency C-section

She was reportedly struck by a grey Acura MDX that was driving down Main, though police said the vehicle had a green light.

They also confirmed that she was seven months pregnant.

After the accident, Ms Young was rushed to Memorial Hermann hospital, and was pronounced dead.

However, doctors managed to save her child, who is currently listed in critical condition.

Houston police said the car next to the Acura stopped in the intersection, but the Acura continued on, striking the young woman.

They held the driver of the Acura for questioning, but they were later released.

The investigation for the case is on-going. 

Ms Young was a bright postdoctoral student teaching at the Computational and Applied Mathematics department at Rice University.

'It seemed like the stars were perfectly aligned for her,' Rice professor Steve Cox told Chron.com.

Mr Cox was the principal investigator on the grant that brought Ms Young to the university's Computational and Applied Mathematics Department almost two years ago. Mr Cox said Ms Young's grant application stood out, particularly because of her extraordinary teaching and mentoring experience.

'It's just tragic,' he said.

Urgent care: She was taken to Memorial Hermann Hospital, where doctors saved her child via emergency C-section; she was pronounced dead

Higher education: Ms Young taught at the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics at Rice University

The professor's husband, Gavan Young, was too grief-stricken to speak to the press on Wednesday, according to the news website.

In September, Ms Young was to begin the last year of a prestigious fellowship at Rice University after completing her doctorate in applied mathematics.

She would have been a fully-fledged professor in about a year, having recently accepted a tenure-track position at another university.

In a letter to faculty, staff and students, the university's chairman of computational and applied mathematics Matthias Heinkenschloss announced Ms Young's death, describing her as talented and accomplished with a bright future.

Ms Young arrived at Rice in 2010 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of Delaware and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The academic continued that work at Rice, teaching and participating in mathematics outreach programs with high school students.

The bond Ms Young had built with her students brought her some of the best teaching evaluations in the department's history, Mr Heinkenschloss said in the note.

Ms Young, who specialized in mathematical biology, also participated in research. She spent significant time establishing a working collaboration with scientists at the Texas Medical Center, where she probably had been the morning of the crash, Mr Cox said.

He called her 'a natural academic' and recalled how excited she was when she told him she was pregnant.

'She had this love and belief that one could do it all,' Mr Cox said. 'With no complaints.'