Authorities have intensified their seek for clues after a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was fatally shot at his home close to Boston.
Nuno F Gomes Loureiro, 47, a nuclear science and engineering professor from Portugal, was shot “multiple times” on Monday and died on Tuesday morning in hospital, Brookline police and MIT officers stated.
No one is in custody and police are treating the incident as “an active and ongoing homicide investigation”, the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office stated.
Loureiro joined MIT’s college in 2016 and was named director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center in 2024.
Officers responded to a name for gunshots at an condominium at about 20:30 native time (01:30 GMT). Loureiro was taken by ambulance to a Boston hospital, the place he died on Tuesday morning, police stated.
CBS News, the BBC’s US media accomplice, reported {that a} neighbour stated he heard “three loud bangs” Monday night and thought anyone within the condominium constructing was kicking in a door.
Eurydice Hirsey, one other native resident, instructed Fox News that she met Loureiro by way of his spouse, Ines, and stated the couple had three youngsters ranging in age from elementary college to varsity.
“We take (dance) classes together several times a week,” Hirsey stated. “I just saw her last night.”
“It’s a family that’s feeling such raw horror… terror,” she stated. “And what do you do with something that’s indescribable?”
Some of Loureiro’s college students visited his condominium home on Tuesday afternoon to pay their respects, the Boston Globe reported.
Loureiro majored in Physics at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon in 2000 and obtained a Phd in physics at Imperial College London in 2005, in response to his college net web page.
The theoretical physicist and fusion scientist was recognized for his award-winning analysis in magnetised plasma dynamics.
Magnetised plasma dynamics is the research of the state of matter by which the movement of charged particles is influenced by the presence of an exterior magnetic discipline, in response to Nature.
His analysis addressed “complex problems lurking at the center of fusion vacuum chambers and at the edges of the universe”, in response to the college’s obituary.
He additionally studied methods to harness clear “fusion power” to fight local weather change, CBS stated.
“Our deepest sympathies are with his family, students, colleagues, and all those who are grieving,” an MIT spokesperson stated in an announcement supplied to the BBC.
The college added that “focused outreach and conversations” are happening inside the MIT group to supply care and assist for individuals who knew the professor.
The centre’s previous director, Dennis Whyte, described Loureiro as each a superb scientist and a superb particular person.
“He shone a bright light as a mentor, friend, teacher, colleague and leader, and was universally admired for his articulate, compassionate manner,” Mr Whyte instructed MIT News.
Deepto Chakrabarty, the top of MIT’s division of physics, echoed these sentiments and stated that Loureiro was a champion of plasma physics and that his current analysis was “a particularly exciting new scientific direction”.
Correction 16 December: An earlier model of this story incorrectly outlined the sort of plasma that Professor Loureiro researched.