MIT professor Nuno Loureiro was killed in a shooting at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts Monday night, the school confirmed. Loureiro, a nuclear science and engineering professor from Portugal, was 47 years old.

A Brookline police spokesperson said officers responded to a call for gunshots at an apartment on Gibbs Street at about 8:30 p.m.

"A victim was located who had been shot multiple times," Brookline police deputy superintendent Paul Campbell told WBZ-TV.

Loureiro was taken by ambulance to a Boston hospital, where he died Tuesday morning. No other information about the shooting was immediately released and authorities did not say if they are looking for a suspect. Campbell said no one is in custody.

"This is an active and ongoing homicide investigation," Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey's office said in a statement.

Brookline neighbors heard shooting

A neighbor who did not want to be identified said 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.

Anne Greenwald, who has lived in the neighborhood for 40 years, said 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."

MIT professor Nuno Loureiro

Last May, Loureiro was named director of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center. An article on the school's website described it as "one of MIT's largest labs" with more than 250 full-time researchers, students and staff working across seven buildings.

"Our deepest sympathies are with his family, students, colleagues, and all those who are grieving," an MIT spokesperson said in a statement. "Focused outreach and conversations are taking place within our community to offer care and support for those who knew Prof. Loureiro, and a message will be shared with our wider community."

The MIT article said Loureiro is 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.   

Loureiro had been with the prestigious college in Cambridge since 2016. 

"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."