MIT professor shot, killed in Brookline home

Colleen Cronin, Boston Herald on Dec 16, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

BOSTON — A 47-year-old Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor has died after being shot in his Brookline home Monday night, the DA said.

Officers from the Massachusetts State Police and Brookline Police Department responded to reports of a man shot on Gibb Street.

Nuno F.G. Loureiro was transported to a local hospital and succumbed to his injuries Tuesday morning.

Police are actively investigating the death as a homicide, according to the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office, writing in a statement, “No further information is being released at this time.”

The DA has not said they arrested anyone in connection with the homicide and or identified any suspects.

According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s website, Loureiro was director of the school’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center as well as a professor of nuclear science and engineering and physics.

“Sadly, I can confirm that Professor Nuno Loureiro, who died early this morning, was a current MIT faculty member,” said institute spokesperson Sarah McDonnell. “Our deepest sympathies are with his family, students, colleagues, and all those who are grieving. 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.”

McDonnell said that MIT police were also assisting in the investigation.

A few people walking in an out of the center Loureiro ran Tuesday declined to comment or referred The Herald to the school’s communication team.

Loureiro majored in Physics at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon (Portugal) in 2000 and obtained a Ph.D. in Physics at Imperial College London (U.K.) in 2005, according to his MIT bio.

He did post-doctoral work at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory between 2005-07, and at the UKAEA Culham Centre for Fusion Energy between 2007-09. Prior to joining MIT in 2016 Loureiro was a researcher at the Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion at IST Lisbon.

By Tuesday afternoon, someone had placed signs on the professor’s and his neighbors’ doors on Gibbs Street, asking everyone to light a candle and place them in their windows at 7 p.m, “in memory of our neighbor Nuno Loureiro, who died tragically last night.”

Louise Cohen, who lived in the same building as Loureiro, told The Herald that she heard shots go off Monday and called the police.

In a several posts, she described the experience of hearing the shots, then a child crying, and coming out of her apartment only to see that Loureiro was barely concscious on the floor of the foyer in their building.

She described Loureiro and his family as, “the nicest people you would ever want as neighbors.” Cohen explained that she has a disability and that the whole family always offered her help with her grocery bags when she used a walker or cane.

“Be alert, be careful, try not to walk around alone,” she wrote in the post. “Beyond that I am uncharacteristically speechless.”

---------

— Nancy Lane contributed to this reporting.

-------------