MIT professor's killing remains a mystery as police launch homicide investigation
Authorities were working Wednesday to uncover clues after a prominent professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was fatally shot at his home near Boston.
Nuno F.G. Loureiro, a 47-year-old physicist and fusion scientist, was shot Monday night at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts. He died at a local hospital on Tuesday, the Norfolk district attorney's office said, and authorities said they had launched a homicide investigation.
The prosecutor's office said no suspects had been taken into custody as of Tuesday and that its investigation was ongoing. Authorities have not released any information about possible leads or a potential motive in the killing.
Loureiro, who joined MIT in 2016, was named last year to lead MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center, where he aimed to advance clean energy technology and other research. The center, one of the school's largest labs, had more than 250 people working across seven buildings when he took the helm.
"It's not hyperbole to say MIT is where you go to find solutions to humanity's biggest problems," Loureiro said when he was named to lead the plasma science lab. "Fusion energy will change the course of human history."
Loureiro, who was married, grew up in Viseu, in central Portugal, and studied in Lisbon before earning a doctorate in London, according to MIT. He was a researcher at an institute for nuclear fusion in Lisbon before joining MIT, it said.
"Nuno was not only a brilliant scientist, he was a brilliant person," Dennis Whyte, an engineering professor who was the former head of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center, said in an MIT obituary. "He shone a bright light as a mentor, friend, teacher, colleague, and leader, and was universally admired for his articulate, compassionate manner."
The president of MIT, Sally Kornbluth, said in a statement that Loureiro's death was a "shocking loss."
The homicide investigation in Brookline comes as police in Providence, Rhode Island, about 50 miles away, continue to search for the gunman who killed two students and injured nine others at Brown University on Saturday. The FBI on Tuesday said it knew of no connection between the crimes.
A neighbor of Loureiro's who did not want to be identified told CBS News Boston he heard "three loud bangs" Monday evening.
"I thought at first it was somebody in our apartment kicking in a door or something so I called the neighbors and they said no they thought it was gunshots," he said.
A 22-year-old student at Boston University who lives near Loureiro's apartment in Brookline told The Boston Globe she also heard three loud noises Monday evening and feared it was gunfire. "I had never heard anything so loud, so I assumed they were gunshots," Liv Schachner was quoted as saying. "It's difficult to grasp. It just seems like it keeps happening."
Anne Greenwald, who has lived in the neighborhood for 40 years, told CBS News Boston she and her husband also heard a noise that sounded like gunshots. "He had a young family, they went to school here," she said. "It's horrible, very scary."
Some of Loureiro's students visited his home, an apartment in a three-story brick building, Tuesday afternoon to pay their respects, the Globe reported.
MIT said Loureiro was known for his research on how plasma works, "particularly turbulence and the physics underpinning solar flares and other astronomical phenomena." He was also studying how to harness clean "fusion power" to combat climate change.
"Professionally I'm completely overwhelmed with what MIT is," he said in a 2017 interview. "You read about it and you talk to people about it, but before you've experienced it, I don't think you quite understand the type of place it is."
The U.S. ambassador to Portugal, John J. Arrigo, expressed his condolences in an online post that honored Loureiro for his leadership and contributions to science.
"I extend my deepest condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of Nuno Loureiro, who led MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center," Arrigo said in a statement on X. "We honor his life, his leadership in science, and his enduring contributions."