Dr Nuno Loureiro, professor
and director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, died of gunshot
wounds on December 16th 2025.
**
Nuno Loureiro was born in 1977 in Viseu, a small city in
central Portugal. As early as the primary school stage, Loureiro decided what
he wanted to be. Unlike many of his schoolmates, he chose to be a scientist. Of
course, he could not tell how this ambition germinated. But by the time he turned 17, he decided to
devote his life to physics.
Graduating with a degree in physics from Instituto Superior
Técnico (IST) in Lisbon, Loureiro moved to Imperial College in London and obtained
PhD for his study of ‘tearing modes in plasma’—– the fourth phase of matter, in
which ions and electrons form a sort of super-hot broth that accounts for 99.9%
of the ordinary (baryonic) matter in the visible universe. Even stars like our Sun
and nebulae are made up of the same stuff.
Plasma has abundant energy. It is filled with electrical and
magnetic fields. They interact in highly dynamic ways—constantly pushing and
pulling themselves until they are torn apart and reformed. It is this
phenomenon of ‘tearing modes’ in plasma leading to ‘magnetic reconnection’ which
converts magnetic energy into kinetic and thermal energy, that Loureiro
researched at Imperial College for his PhD.
Loureiro was so fascinated by solar wind—a highly variable
stream of particles ejected by the Sun that are charged with energy, which
demonstrates magnetic interactions on a massive scale—that he took it as a
prime natural laboratory to study plasma turbulence. Secondly, the immense
energy carried by solar wind is considered capable of meeting our substantial
energy needs if it were harnessed. And thus, the turbulent plasmas and the
mechanisms of magnetic reconnection soon became his research pursuit for the
rest of his life.
After obtaining his PhD in 2005, Loureiro undertook
postdoctoral research at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory for the next
two years. In 2007, he moved to UKAEA Culham Center for Fusion Energy. Then in
2009, he returned to IST, Lisbon and carried out research at the Institute for
Plasma and Nuclear Fusion Energy.
In 2016, he joined MIT in search of the company of best minds
and best facilities to study the wayward matter—Plasma, and replicate the huge
fusion forces observed in the Sun and other stars and generate continuous
energy without using oil or coal. As an
assistant professor and then a full professor, he taught courses at MIT, viz., Intro
to Plasma Physics and Theory of fusion systems, for which he was twice
recognised with the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering’s PAI
Outstanding Professor Award.
Loureiro pursued plasma studies with passion. He studied it
in the laboratory with tokamaks—doughnut-shaped reactors—using magnets to try
to hold plasma steady at a temperature of millions of degrees, as in stars. He
was also getting data from satellites stationed at a very close range from the
Sun, which could be used to measure plasma behaviour in space and use it as an
“exquisite accuracy” for his laboratory plasma models—an attempt to connect the
physics of the lab with that of space. Simultaneously, he and his students were
obsessively tracking the kinetic energy of plasma in a vessel, comparing temperatures
at the periphery and the core with an objective to construct a numerical model
to predict the outcomes. They indeed attempted to cause fusion, but “plasma
would do its own thing”. Thus, the question of harnessing all that energy for
the good of humanity remained as an intellectual challenge and a real practical
problem.
Loureiro’s research at MIT advanced our understanding of
plasma behaviour and also uncovered the physics behind astronomical phenomena like
solar flares. In 2024, he was named director of the Plasma Science and Fusion
Center of MIT, though his contributions to fusion science and engineering began
far before that.
His work in astrophysics revealed fundamental mechanisms of
the universe. Based on the unprecedented observations of a binary neutron star
merger in 2018, he came up with the first theory of turbulence in pair plasmas (electron-positron
plasmas) that differ from regular plasma.
His research on magnetised plasma dynamics, magnetic field
amplification and confinement and transport in fusion plasmas led to the design
of fusion devices that could harness the energy of fusing plasmas. It almost
brought the dream of clean and limitless fusion power closer to reality. Nevertheless, Loureiro, for whom the struggle for success itself
was enough, admitted that reliable fusion energy is still a long way off.
Loureiro, whether working on fusion or
astrophysics, always merged fundamental physics with technology and engineering
to maximise the impact. This extraordinary scientist won several prizes.
Notable of them is the Presidential Early Career Award for young scientists
presented by Joe Biden, former President of the US.
This leading
researcher in the field of dynamics of space and astrophysical plasmas was shot
at his home on December 15, 2025, and died the next day. Authorities linked the
murder to Neves Valente, who committed suicide on December 18, 2025. Valente
attended the same physics program along with Loureiro at IST, Lisbon and topped
the class with an average of 19/20. This brilliant Valente later went to Brown
University, but after a few months, dropped out and disappeared. He reappeared on 13th December to
kill two students and injure nine others at Brown University, and later on 15th
at Brookline, Massachusetts, to shoot his classmate Loureiro. Authorities could
not establish a firm motive for shooting Loureiro.
Ironically, Loureiro’s
research also reveals that all kinds of explosions can be neither controlled
nor explained. But his death is an immeasurable loss to the
entire fusion and plasma research world.
**
