Shooting of MIT professor Nuno Loureiro has police searching for a
suspect
[December 18, 2025]
By MICHAEL CASEY
BROOKLINE, Mass. (AP) — Police intensified their search Wednesday for a
suspect in the killing of professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, two days after he was shot to
death at his home outside Boston.
Loureiro, a 47-year-old physicist and fusion scientist, was shot Monday
night at his apartment in Brookline, Massachusetts. He died at a local
hospital on Tuesday, the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office said in a
statement.
The prosecutor’s office said the homicide investigation was “active and
ongoing” as of early afternoon Wednesday and had no update — earlier
they had said no suspects were in custody.
The investigation into the MIT professor's killing comes as Brown
University, another prestigious institution just 50 miles (80
kilometers) away in Providence, Rhode Island, is reeling from an
unsolved shooting that killed two students and wounded nine others
Saturday. Investigators provided no indication Tuesday that they were
any closer to zeroing in on the gunman's identity.
The FBI on Tuesday said it knew of no connection between the crimes.
Dozens of people gathered outside Louriero’s building Tuesday night,
many with candles in hand, to honor the professor’s life and support his
family. Neighbors received paper notices attached to their doors with
tape to place candles in their windows in Louriero’s honor. Some people
cried and held each other, but most attendees were silent, their breath
visible in the bracing cold. A few children rode scooters from their
nearby homes to the gathering.
The killing happened when most MIT students were on winter break, and
more than a dozen of them on the Cambridge campus on Wednesday didn’t
want to talk about it. Most said they didn't know him.
A 22-year-old student at Boston University who lives near Loureiro’s
apartment in Brookline told The Boston Globe she heard three loud noises
Monday evening and feared it was gunfire. “I had never heard anything so
loud, so I assumed they were gunshots,” Liv Schachner was quoted as
saying. “It’s difficult to grasp. It just seems like it keeps
happening.”
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This undated photo provided by the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in December 2025 shows Nuno Loureiro. (Jake Belcher/MIT
via AP)
Loureiro, who was married, joined MIT in 2016 and was named last
year to lead MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, where he worked
to advance clean energy technology and other research. The center,
one of the school's largest labs, had more than 250 people working
across 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
before earning a doctorate in London, according to MIT. He was a
researcher at an institute for nuclear fusion in Lisbon before
joining MIT, the university said.
“He shone a bright light as a mentor, friend, teacher, colleague and
leader, and was universally admired for his articulate,
compassionate manner,” Dennis Whyte, an engineering professor who
previously led MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, told a campus
publication.
The president of MIT, Sally Kornbluth, said in a statement that the
killing was a “shocking loss.” The office of Portuguese President
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa also put out a condolence statement calling
Loureiro’s death “an irreparable loss for science and for all those
with whom he worked and lived.”
Loureiro had said he hoped his work would shape the future.
“It’s not hyperbole to say MIT is where you go to find solutions to
humanity’s biggest problems,” Loureiro said when he was named to
lead the plasma science lab last year. “Fusion energy will change
the course of human history.”
___
Associated Press writers Leah Willingham in Boston; Mark Scolforo in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and David Biller in Rome contributed.
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