Report: The Suspect in the Brown University Attack Killed a Brilliant Scientist in a Shocking Crime

SadaNews - In an incident that shocked the global academic community, prominent Portuguese physicist Nuno Loureiro (47), a pillar of scientific research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was shot dead in his home in Brooklyn, Massachusetts, this week by the suspect Claudio Neves Valente, who is also wanted in the "Brown University" attack that resulted in the deaths of two people and injured nine others, before being found dead in New Hampshire, with no motive revealed so far according to the American New York Times.

Nuno Loureiro, a physics professor, was one of the rare minds that change the course of science. Since his childhood in Portugal, when his peers dreamed of military uniforms or firefighter helmets, his dream was clear: to become a scientist.

And he did, with remarkable brilliance that made his name resonate in the highest global scientific circles. In his twenties, he made a significant scientific breakthrough in understanding how the sun releases bursts of energy in phenomena known as solar flares, an achievement described by leading scientists as "changing the course of scientific research" in his field. Eileen Zwiebell, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, stated that "it is rare for a PhD thesis to redirect an entire scientific field, but Nuno's work on reconnecting magnetic fields actually did that".

Loureiro advanced at an astonishing pace in his academic career; he obtained his PhD before the age of forty and later led one of the major research labs at MIT, where he was known as a brilliant scientist, an inspiring professor, and a scientific leader with confidence and calmness. He would approach the board in the lecture hall, writing complex equations steadily and transforming heavy theoretical concepts into vibrant ideas, and "he was like Einstein but without the crazy hair," as one of his colleagues humorously described him according to the newspaper.

Loureiro did not fit the image of an isolated scientist. He was a human presence, close to his students, well-dressed, football-loving, often seen playing with his daughter and neighborhood kids.

His friend Alexander Chikushin from the University of Oxford said about him: "Just his smile was enough to warm the place... when he entered the room, we all smiled".

Then came the shock. In a horrific shooting incident, Loureiro was killed in his home in Massachusetts. After hours of mourning, the incident turned into a larger mystery when authorities announced that the suspect was the same shooter from the "Brown University" attack two days earlier and that both shared Portuguese nationality and had studied at the same scientific institution previously.

So far, there is no clear motive, but the result is the same: the scientific community has lost an irreplaceable exceptional mind.

In scientific institutes and research centers, silence has descended. He was a professor, a researcher, a mentor, and a father of three daughters, whom he always described himself to as "fighting numbers" daily, before replying with a smile: "I haven't fought enough numbers yet today".