Nuno Loureiro, a nuclear physicist, has been found dead. Israeli intelligence services are convinced they know who ordered the killing.
The murder of a distinguished professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) remains shrouded in mystery. Nuno Loureiro, 47, a Portuguese national, was shot dead in his home near Boston. He was a physicist and scientist specializing in nuclear fusion, as well as director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, one of the world’s most prestigious research hubs. On Monday evening, Loureiro was found critically wounded in his residence in the residential area of Brookline and died a day later in hospital, according to the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office.
Authorities have opened a homicide investigation, but no arrests have been made so far. However, sources in law enforcement and among investigators told CNN that police are examining not only a possible link between the MIT professor’s killing and a shooting that occurred Saturday at Brown University—where a gunman killed two students and wounded nine others, several critically—but also that a suspect has been identified and an arrest warrant has been issued.
Loureiro joined MIT in 2016 and last year was appointed to lead the center, where he aimed to promote clean-energy technologies and advanced research. The Plasma Science and Fusion Center is one of the institute’s largest laboratories and had more than 250 staff members spread across seven buildings at the time he took over. “It is not an exaggeration to say that MIT is where solutions to humanity’s greatest problems are found,” Loureiro said at the time of his appointment. “Energy from nuclear fusion will change the course of human history.”
University President Sally Kornbluth called the loss “shocking,” noting that the professor “very quickly became known as a creative scholar, a capable administrator, and an enthusiastic mentor.”
Married, Loureiro grew up in Viseu, Portugal. He studied in Lisbon, earned his doctorate in London, worked as a researcher at a nuclear fusion institute in the Portuguese capital, and later moved to Massachusetts. A neighbor who asked to remain anonymous told CBS News he had heard “three loud gunshots” on Monday evening. A 22-year-old Boston University student who lives near Loureiro’s Brookline apartment also told the Boston Globe she heard three very loud noises: “I had never heard a sound that powerful—I thought they were gunshots,” explained Liv Schachner. “It’s hard to believe, but it seems these things keep happening.”
Meanwhile, Israeli authorities are reviewing classified information regarding a possible Iranian involvement in the scientist’s killing, the Jerusalem Post reports. “According to information gathered in recent days, there are indications of Tehran’s involvement in the murder of Professor Loureiro,” the article says, while clarifying that this is “an assessment that has not yet been verified and is not, at this stage, supported by official findings from U.S. investigative authorities.”