By MICHAEL CASEY
BROOKLINE, Mass. (AP) — Police intensified their search Wednesday for a suspect within the killing of professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise, two days after he was shot to demise at his residence outdoors Boston.
Loureiro, a 47-year-old physicist and fusion scientist, was shot Monday night time at his residence in Brookline, Massachusetts. He died at an area hospital on Tuesday, the Norfolk District Legal professional’s Workplace mentioned in an announcement.
The prosecutor’s workplace mentioned the murder investigation was “lively and ongoing” as of early afternoon Wednesday and had no replace — earlier they’d mentioned no suspects had been in custody.
A discover encouraging neighbors of Massachusetts Institute of Expertise professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro to show candles of their home windows to honor his life is taped to an residence door in Brookline, Mass., Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. (AP Photograph/Leah Willingham)
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A discover encouraging neighbors of Massachusetts Institute of Expertise professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro to show candles of their home windows to honor his life is taped to an residence door in Brookline, Mass., Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. (AP Photograph/Leah Willingham)
The investigation into the MIT professor’s killing comes as Brown College, one other prestigious establishment simply 50 miles away in Windfall, Rhode Island, is reeling from an unsolved taking pictures that killed two college students and wounded 9 others Saturday. Investigators supplied no indication Tuesday that they had been any nearer to zeroing in on the gunman’s identification.
The FBI on Tuesday mentioned it knew of no connection between the crimes.
Dozens of individuals gathered outdoors Louriero’s constructing Tuesday night time, many with candles in hand, to honor the professor’s life and help his household. Neighbors obtained paper notices hooked up to their doorways with tape to put candles of their home windows in Louriero’s honor. Some folks cried and held one another, however most attendees had been silent, their breath seen within the bracing chilly. A couple of kids rode scooters from their close by properties to the gathering.
The killing occurred when most MIT college students had been on winter break, and greater than a dozen of them on the Cambridge campus on Wednesday didn’t need to discuss it. Most mentioned they didn’t know him.
A 22-year-old scholar at Boston College who lives close to Loureiro’s residence in Brookline instructed The Boston Globe she heard three loud noises Monday night and feared it was gunfire. “I had by no means heard something so loud, so I assumed they had been gunshots,” Liv Schachner was quoted as saying. “It’s tough to understand. It simply looks as if it retains taking place.”
Loureiro, who was married, joined MIT in 2016 and was named final 12 months to steer MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Middle, the place he labored to advance clear vitality expertise and different analysis. The middle, one of many faculty’s largest labs, had greater than 250 folks working throughout seven buildings when he took the helm. He was a professor of physics and nuclear science and engineering.
He grew up in Viseu, in central Portugal, and studied in Lisbon earlier than incomes a doctorate in London, based on MIT. He was a researcher at an institute for nuclear fusion in Lisbon earlier than becoming a member of MIT, the college mentioned.
“He shone a vivid mild as a mentor, buddy, instructor, colleague and chief, and was universally admired for his articulate, compassionate method,” Dennis Whyte, an engineering professor who beforehand led MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Middle, instructed a campus publication.
The president of MIT, Sally Kornbluth, mentioned in an announcement that the killing was a “surprising loss.” The workplace of Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa additionally put out a condolence assertion calling Loureiro’s demise “an irreparable loss for science and for all these with whom he labored and lived.”
Loureiro had mentioned he hoped his work would form the longer term.
“It’s not hyperbole to say MIT is the place you go to seek out options to humanity’s greatest issues,” Loureiro mentioned when he was named to lead the plasma science lab final 12 months. “Fusion vitality will change the course of human historical past.”
Related Press writers Leah Willingham in Boston; Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and David Biller in Rome contributed.
