While every other child dreamed of becoming a police officer or firefighter, Nuno Loureiro, who grew up in Portugal, wanted to become a scientist.
And that’s exactly what he became, making surprising discoveries in the world of physics while still in his 20s, landing his job at 40, and going on to lead a major research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
“He was the kind of person who would go to the board, start writing equations and explain everything,” said Bruno Gonçalves, director of the Institute of Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion at the Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal’s top science and engineering school, where Loureiro worked as a researcher and team leader.
“The students loved it,” Gonçalves said. “He was like Einstein without the shaggy hair.”
Loureiro, 47, was shot and killed at his Brookline, Mass., home last week, in a case that first sparked an outpouring of grief — then shock when authorities announced he had been killed by the fugitive suspect in the Brown University shootings two days earlier.
The suspect, identified as Claudio Neves Valente, walked into a study session at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, on December 13 and opened fire, killing two people and injuring nine others.
Two days later, authorities said, he showed up in the leafy Brookline neighborhood where Loureiro lived with his family.
Authorities initially said the two cases did not appear to be related, but in a dramatic reversal Thursday, they announced that Neves Valente was responsible for both shootings and that they found him dead in a New Hampshire warehouse. Authorities have not released a motive.
To add to the mystery, the suspect and the professor were both Portuguese, of the same age and had studied physics at the Instituto Superior Técnico from 1995 to 2000.
But it was unclear how well the two men knew each other at that time, how their paths crossed or whether they remained in touch in the decades that followed. Close friends of Loureiro said they had never heard of Neves Valente until authorities announced his name as a suspect.
The events shook the closed world of nuclear science and physics, in which Loureiro was considered a beloved figure and star.
Loureiro made his mark at a young age, with an important discovery that helped understand how the Sun releases bursts of energy, a phenomenon observed during solar flares.
“It’s rare for a doctoral dissertation to refocus an entire field of study, but it’s fair to say that Nuno’s work on magnetic reconnection has done just that,” said Ellen Zweibel, a professor of astronomy and physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
After receiving his doctorate from Imperial College London in 2005, Loureiro conducted research at Princeton University and worked in the United Kingdom and Portugal, before joining MIT in 2016.
Most recently, he directed the Center for Plasma and Fusion Science at MIT. Earlier this year, he was one of nearly 400 people to receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on early-career scientists and engineers.
Dennis Whyte, former director of the Center for Plasma and Fusion Science, described him as a “brilliant scientist” as well as a “brilliant person.”
Steven Cowley, director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and Loureiro’s longtime friend and colleague, said his friend managed to solve a “50-year-old mystery” while he was still in his 20s, while maintaining a sense of humor and never feeling superior.
“He would raise an eyebrow and look at you, and there was a certain air of irony,” Cowley said. “He had a keen sense of the absurd and absolutely no pomp. When he saw that in others, he found it funny,” he added.
Colleagues described him as a beloved mentor to students, known for bringing complex theories to life.
When explaining his work to his daughters when they were little, he said he spent his days “wrestling with numbers,” his family recalled in an obituary shared with The New York Times.
When his daughter asked him, “How many numbers did you face today?” » he often replied: “Not as much as I would like”.
A small memorial, with flowers and candles, was formed Friday on the steps of her Brookline home. The MIT campus was quiet on a rainy December day at the end of the semester.
Employees at the lab where Loureiro worked declined to comment, and students on campus said they were told not to speak to the press.
Many questions remain unanswered as to why Neves Valente chose Brown University as his target before showing up at Loureiro’s door two days later.
Loureiro leaves behind his wife, his three daughters, his mother and a brother. “He was completely devoted to his daughters,” said Cowley, who said he saw his friend earlier this month at a meeting in Washington. It was all in the family.
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