Who Was Nuno F.G. Loureiro? What to Know About the Slain MIT Professor

Nuno F.G. Loureiro was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was fatally shot inside his home on Dec. 15.

Loureiro was found with bullet wounds at his house in Brookline, Mass., the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office shared in a statement on Dec. 16. The Massachusetts State Police are investigating the death as a homicide. As of Dec. 17, the police have not released any names of suspects or people of interest.

Shortly after news of Loureiro’s death spread, several MIT students gathered outside of his home to hold a candlelight vigil and remember his legacy.

In addition to being a professor of nuclear science and engineering and physics, Loureiro was also the director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center. He was known for his work specifically with plasma dynamics, per his obituary in MIT News.

“Nuno was a champion for plasma physics within the Physics Department, a wonderful and engaging colleague, and an inspiring and caring mentor for graduate students working in plasma science,” Deepto Chakrabarty, the head of the Department of Physics, said in his obituary.

Here’s everything to know about MIT Professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro and his tragic death.

Loureiro was born and raised in Portugal and studied physics in Lisbon and London

Loureiro was born and raised in a small city in central Portugal, per his MIT News obituary. From when he was a young child, he knew that he wanted to be a scientist — even when “everyone else wanted to be a policeman or a fireman,” he recalled in a 2018 interview with MIT News.

By the time he graduated high school, Loureiro “realized that physics was what I liked best” and pursued higher education in the field. He studied at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal, where he earned an undergraduate degree in physics before earning his Ph.D. from Imperial College in London in 2005.

Loureiro began his physics research at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and the UKAEA Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. In 2009, he returned to Portugal to take on a principal investigator role at IST Lisbon’s Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion.

Loureiro was a professor at MIT in the departments of nuclear science and engineering and physics

In 2016, Loureiro moved to the United States to join the MIT faculty in the Departments of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Physics. He earned tenure the following year and enjoyed both research and teaching.

“I like to teach,” Loureiro told MIT News, while adding that another factor for joining the staff was the “peerless intellectual caliber of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT.”

Loureiro eventually worked his way up and became the deputy director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center in 2022 and ascended to the director role two years later.

“It’s not hyperbole to say MIT is where you go to find solutions to humanity’s biggest problems,” he told MIT News in May 2024. “Fusion is a hard problem, but it can be solved with resolve and ingenuity — characteristics that define MIT. Fusion energy will change the course of human history. It’s both humbling and exciting to be leading a research center that will play a key role in enabling that change.”

MIT’s presidential advisor for science and technology policy, Maria T. Zuper, expressed her confidence in Nuno and said that she had “no doubt” that he was “the right person to step into this key position at this critical time.”

Before his sudden death, Loureiro earned several prominent awards for his research and teaching — including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the National Science Foundation Career Award and the American Physical Society Thomas H. Stix Award for Outstanding Early Career Contributions to Plasma Physics Research, per a 2025 story in MIT News.

He was found shot inside his house on Dec. 15

Loureiro was shot inside his home in the late-night hours of Monday, Dec. 15, according to the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office. Massachusetts State Police responded to reports that a man had been shot in a home on Gibbs Street in Brookline, Mass., per the district attorney’s office.

Loureiro was transported to a nearby hospital to treat gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead on the morning of Dec. 16. He was 47 years old.

“This is an active and ongoing homicide investigation,” the district attorney’s office said in the statement.

A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office, David Linton, told PEOPLE that as of Dec. 16, there had not been any arrests made. Authorities have also not released any information on possible suspects or persons of interest as of Dec. 17.

“The circumstances of his death are under police investigation, so no further details are available,” MIT President Sally Kornbluth wrote in a statement in his obituary. “Please know, however, that we are reaching out to support those in our community who were closest to him.”

Fellow MIT faculty members remembered him as “brilliant” and “extraordinary”

Several of Loureiro’s colleagues from MIT mourned his death and paid respects to his “extraordinary” accomplishments.

“In the face of this shocking loss, our hearts go out to his wife and their family and to his many devoted students, friends and colleagues,” President Kornbluth wrote.

Hitachi America Professor of Engineering Dennis Whyte described Loureiro as “not only a brilliant scientist” but also “a brilliant person,” per a story in MIT News after his death.

“He shone a bright light as a mentor, friend, teacher, colleague and leader, and was universally admired for his articulate, compassionate manner,” Whyte shared. “His loss is immeasurable to our community at the PSFC, NSE and MIT, and around the entire fusion and plasma research world.”

Professor in astrophysics and head of the Department of Physics, Chakrabarty, specifically applauded Loureiro for his “recent work on quantum computing algorithms for plasma physics simulations.”

“Nuno was not only an extraordinary scientist and educator, but also a tremendous colleague, mentor, and friend who cared deeply about his students and his community. His absence will be felt profoundly across NSE and far beyond,” Benoit Forget, the KEPCO Professor and head of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, said in the obituary.