U.S. authorities announced on Wednesday the fatal shooting of a professor specializing in nuclear energy sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who was found dead in his home in the upscale Brookline suburb of Boston.
The victim, Nuno Loureiro, 47, was pronounced dead after being discovered with gunshot wounds inside his residence.
The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office stated that the case is “an active and open homicide investigation,” without disclosing further details at this stage.
MIT confirmed that Loureiro was a professor in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and the Department of Physics and served as Director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at the institute. The university expressed its condolences to his family, students, colleagues, and all those mourning his loss.
According to his biography on MIT’s website, Loureiro’s research focused on the theory and computational simulation of nonlinear plasma dynamics. He joined the MIT faculty in 2016 after working as a researcher at the Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion in Lisbon.
The university added that MIT’s campus police are assisting in the investigation, which is being led by the Massachusetts State Police. It also noted that no further comments would be made at this time out of respect for the ongoing investigation.