The vigil was organised by Arday’s postdoctoral students and was held on Sunday afternoon.
Kahn added: “Hold your friends close and know that we stand strong because we stand together.
“Now, there is a time for anger, of justifiable anger, and that time will come – but today is not that day.
“Today is about celebrating the life of a brilliant man, Professor Jason Arday.
“Today we share the ways Jason made a difference in our lives and in the lives of those around us.”
She said there would be a “promise to seek justice” for him.
Another student told the crowd: “Racism did this.”
She said: “For so many of us Cambridge was once imagined as an arrival. We worked towards places like this; we believed in the university… there was a hope that, having arrived, we might belong.
“Jason’s death and the cruelty and smear that surrounded him reminds us that, for many, we do not belong. An institution can give you a room and still withhold a home.
“It can give you a title and still question your right to speak.”
