MIT Professor, 47, Found Dead at His Brookline Home — Details

"It is impossible to comprehend how something like this could happen," a grieving friend stated.

Gibbs Street near Coolidge Corner is not a place where residents expect violence. Late Monday, that assumption was shattered when multiple gunshots rang out, sending neighbors to their windows as police rushed to the block.

By morning, investigators were still working the scene, and the focus had shifted from what had happened to who had been killed, a detail that has drawn national attention and placed the shooting at the center of a far broader investigation. He has been identified as Nuno F.G. Loureiro, a 47-year-old professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Who Was the Victim

His death has rippled far beyond Brookline. Loureiro blended easily into the neighborhood, according to neighbors quoted by The Boston Globe. An unassuming presence, he was often seen smiling and waving as he left his first-floor condo, sometimes heading to a pickup soccer game.

Few nearby residents knew he was also a nuclear scientist and physicist at MIT, where he led high-stakes research to advance clean, affordable fusion energy.

Born in Portugal, Loureiro studied at elite institutions including Imperial College London and Princeton University before joining MIT in 2016. Last year, he was appointed director of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center, one of the university's most prominent research hubs, overseeing more than 250 researchers across seven buildings.

"It's not hyperbole to say MIT is where you go to find solutions to humanity's biggest problems. Fusion energy will change the course of human history," Loureiro said when he was named to lead the plasma science lab at the time.

How It All Happened

According to authorities, Loureiro was fatally shot around 8:30 p.m. Monday inside the entrance of his three-story brick apartment building. He was transported to a local hospital, where he died on Tuesday. A 22-year-old Boston University student who lives nearby told the Globe she heard three loud noises and immediately feared the worst.

"I had never heard anything so loud, so I assumed they were gunshots," Liv Schachner said. "It's difficult to grasp. It just seems like it keeps happening."

"This family is so amazing. I can't imagine anyone wanting to kill him," said Louise Cohen, an upstairs neighbor who saw Loureiro lying on his back in the building's foyer after hearing gunfire.

As investigators worked the scene, students and colleagues quietly gathered outside Loureiro’s home, leaving flowers and paying their respects.

Why His Death Stunned the Scientific Community

Tributes poured in from colleagues across the world, describing Loureiro as both a gifted scientist and an unusually generous mentor.

"Nuno was a unique and inspirational scientist, always full of brilliant ideas and enthusiasm for his research," said Stanislav Boldyrev, a plasma physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Dennis Whyte, who previously led MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, said Loureiro "shone a bright light as a mentor, friend, teacher, colleague and leader and was universally admired for his articulate, compassionate manner." MIT President Sally Kornbluth called his death a "shocking loss."

The Investigation Takes a Disturbing Turn

For days, authorities released limited information about the shooting. Then, on Thursday, investigators said they were examining whether Loureiro’s killing was connected to a separate mass shooting days earlier at Brown University in Providence.

Federal prosecutors revealed that Loureiro's murder is now believed to be connected to the December 13 mass shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where two students were killed and nine others wounded. In a December 19 press conference, authorities identified the suspect as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente.

A federal prosecutor said:

"We have been working throughout the day to establish probable cause to charge Neves Valente. Earlier today, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts filed a criminal complaint under seal detailing the chain of events over the past six days, including information that led us to today's search of a storage locker in New Hampshire."

Prosecutors said Valente previously studied at Brown University on an F-1 visa and had attended the same academic program as Loureiro in Portugal between 1995 and 2000.

How the Timeline Unfolded

According to prosecutors, Valente rented a gray Nissan Sentra in Boston on December 1 and drove repeatedly to the vicinity of Brown University in the days leading up to the shooting.

"On December 13, Neves Valente entered an auditorium on Brown University's campus during a study session and began shooting at students," the prosecutor added.

"Killing Ella Cook and Mukhammed Aziz Umurzokov and injuring nine others. Between December 13 and December 14, Neves Valente returned to Massachusetts, and on December 15, he murdered MIT professor Nuno Loureiro at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts."

Evidence Ties Suspect to Both Shootings as Prosecutors Confirm Targeted Killing

Investigators said surveillance footage, rental records, hotel bookings, and financial data placed Neves Valente at both crime scenes.

"Investigators identified the vehicle that he had rented in Boston and then drove to Rhode Island," the prosecutor explained. "There was security footage that showed a person who resembled him, and financial investigations linked him not only to that car but also to the hotels he rented."

Authorities said additional footage captured him within a half-mile of Loureiro’s residence and showed him entering the apartment building where the professor lived. Later that night, he was seen entering a storage unit wearing the same clothes he had been observed in shortly after the killing.

Prosecutors later confirmed that Neves Valente is deceased:

"Law enforcement collectively believe that we have identified the person responsible," the prosecutor said. "That person is dead, and we believe he was responsible not only for the Brown shootings but for the Brookline shooting."

During the briefing, a reporter asked whether Loureiro had been specifically targeted. "The information that I know, and again, the investigation will continue to provide you with all the answers that you are asking, is that there was no doubt that he was the intended target," the prosecutor said.

Supporting the Family He Left Behind

In the aftermath, friends and colleagues launched a GoFundMe campaign to support Loureiro’s wife and three daughters.

"With heavy hearts, we share this page on behalf of the Loureiro family — most especially for Nuno's three daughters, whose lives were forever changed by this sudden and devastating tragedy," wrote organizer Iva Konieczka.

Konieczka added, "Many of you have asked what you can do, so we created this GoFundMe to help bridge this unexepected gap — to support the girls' education in the years ahead and to ease the immediate financial burdens facing the family during this unimaginable loss."

For the Brookline neighborhood and for two academic communities now linked by tragedy, the silence left behind is heavy. Loureiro's work focused on shaping humanity's future. His death has instead forced colleagues, students, and neighbors to confront a loss that feels both senseless and profoundly personal.