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Nuno Loureiro, a professor of nuclear science and engineering and of physics at MIT, has died. He was 47.
In a letter to the MIT group, President Sally Kornbluth wrote, “With great sadness, I write to share the tragic news that Professor Nuno Loureiro, director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), died early this morning from gunshot wounds he sustained a few hours before. In the face of this shocking loss, our hearts go out to his wife and their family and to his many devoted students, friends and colleagues.”
A lauded theoretical physicist and fusion scientist, Loureiro joined MIT’s school in 2016. His analysis addressed advanced issues lurking at the middle of fusion vacuum chambers and at the sides of the universe.
Loureiro’s analysis at MIT superior scientists’ understanding of plasma habits, together with turbulence, and uncovered the physics behind astronomical phenomena like photo voltaic flares. He was the Herman Feshbach (1942) Professor of Physics at MIT and was named director of the Plasma (*47*) and Fusion Center in 2024, although his contributions to fusion science and engineering started far earlier than that.
His analysis on magnetized plasma dynamics, magnetic subject amplification, and confinement and transport in fusion plasmas helped inform the design of fusion units that would harness the vitality of fusing plasmas, bringing the dream of clear, near-limitless fusion energy nearer to actuality.
“Nuno was not only a brilliant scientist, he was a brilliant person,” says Dennis Whyte, the Hitachi America Professor of Engineering, who beforehand served as the pinnacle of the Department of Nuclear (*47*) and Engineering and director of the Plasma (*47*) and Fusion Center. “He shone a bright light as a mentor, friend, teacher, colleague and leader, and was universally admired for his articulate, compassionate manner. His loss is immeasurable to our community at the PSFC, NSE and MIT, and around the entire fusion and plasma research world.”
“Nuno was a champion for plasma physics within the Physics Department, a wonderful and engaging colleague, and an inspiring and caring mentor for graduate students working in plasma science. His recent work on quantum computing algorithms for plasma physics simulations was a particularly exciting new scientific direction,” says Deepto Chakrabarty, the William A. M. Burden Professor in Astrophysics and head of the Department of Physics.
Whether engaged on fusion or astrophysics analysis, Loureiro merged elementary physics with expertise and engineering, to maximise impression.
“There are people who are driven by technology and engineering, and others who are driven by fundamental mathematics and physics. We need both,” Loureiro said in 2019. “When we stimulate theoretically inclined minds by framing plasma physics and fusion challenges as beautiful theoretical physics problems, we bring into the game incredibly brilliant students — people who we want to attract to fusion development.”
Loureiro majored in physics at Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST) in Portugal and obtained a PhD in physics at Imperial College London in 2005. He performed postdoctoral work at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory for the subsequent two years earlier than shifting to the UKAEA Culham Center for Fusion Energy in 2007. Loureiro returned to IST in 2009, the place he was a researcher at the Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion till coming to MIT in 2016.
He wasted no time contributing to the mental surroundings at MIT, spending half of his first two years at the Institute engaged on the vexing drawback of plasma turbulence. Plasma is the super-hot state of matter that serves because the gas for fusion reactors. Loureiro’s lab at PSFC illuminated how plasma behaves inside fusion reactors, which might assist stop materials failures and higher comprise the plasma to reap electrical energy.
“Nuno was not only an extraordinary scientist and educator, but also a tremendous colleague, mentor, and friend who cared deeply about his students and his community. His absence will be felt profoundly across NSE and far beyond,” Benoit Forget, the KEPCO Professor and head of the Department of Nuclear (*47*) and Engineering, wrote in an e-mail to the division in the present day.
On different fronts, Loureiro’s work in astrophysics helped reveal elementary mechanisms of the universe. He put ahead the primary principle of turbulence in pair plasmas, which differ from common plasmas and could also be ample in area. The work was pushed, partly, by unprecedented observations of a binary neutron star merger in 2018.
As an assistant professor and then a full professor at MIT, Loureiro taught course 22.612 (Intro to Plasma Physics) and course 22.615 (MHD Theory of Fusion Systems), for which he was twice acknowledged with the Department of Nuclear (*47*) and Engineering’s PAI Outstanding Professor Award.
Loureiro’s analysis earned him many outstanding awards all through his prolific profession, together with the National (*47*) Foundation Career Award and the American Physical Society Thomas H. Stix Award for Outstanding Early Career Contributions to Plasma Physics Research. He was additionally an APS fellow. Earlier this 12 months, he earned the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.