MIT professor shot dead in Brookline home, Massachusetts State Police launch homicide investigation

Homicide detectives are investigating after a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) lab director and professor was found shot to death in his Brookline home.

Nuno F.G. Loureiro, 47, was taken to a local hospital Monday night with apparent gunshot wounds after the Brookline Police Department received a report of a man shot at his home, according to a statement from the Norfolk District Attorney's Office.

Loureiro was pronounced dead Tuesday morning, the district attorney's office confirmed.

MIT's communications office said Loureiro was a MIT faculty member in the departments of Nuclear Science & Engineering and Physics and the director of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center. 

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"Our deepest sympathies are with his family, students, colleagues, and all those who are grieving," MIT spokesperson Kimberly Allen wrote in a statement to Fox News. "Focused outreach and conversations are taking place within our community to offer care and support for those who knew Prof. Loureiro, and a message will be shared with our wider community."

Officials said the case is an "active and ongoing" homicide investigation, led by the Massachusetts State Police.

MIT said it will not release any additional information "out of respect for the integrity of this ongoing investigation." The suspect remains at large.

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According to Loureiro's faculty page, the professor majored in physics at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2000 and earned a doctorate in physics at Imperial College London, UK, in 2005.

He completed postdoctoral work at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory from 2005 to 2007 and at the UKAEA Culham Centre for Fusion Energy from 2007 to 2009.

Loureiro worked as a researcher at the Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion at IST Lisbon before joining MIT in 2016.

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Loureiro's past work spanned theory and computational modeling of nonlinear plasma dynamics, where his group used analytical tools and state-of-the art simulations to study magnetic reconnection, turbulence and related instabilities.

He also pursued emerging computational methods for plasma research, including machine learning and quantum computing.

His awards included the American Physical Society Thomas H. Stix Award for Outstanding Early Career Contributions to Plasma Physics Research in 2015, the National Science Foundation Career Award in 2017, the Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Excellence in Teaching in MIT's School of Engineering in 2022 and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2025.