Israel will be investigating whether Iran was behind the murder of Portuguese professor Nuno Loureiro, who was in charge of the Plasma and Fusion Science Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was shot dead on Monday (December 15) at the entrance to his building in Boston. The hypothesis was put forward by the Israeli press, at a time when the North American authorities remain clueless about the crime.
“The Israeli investigation is being conducted in a context marked by the sensitive nature of the Loureiro research area”, wrote the Jerusalem Postadding that the 47-year-old Portuguese “was considered one of the world’s leading researchers in energy and nuclear physics, having played important roles in research centers related to the development of future technologies”.
However, the newspaper did not provide any further information on this theory, claiming only that Nuno Loureiro had defended Israel in the past, but making it clear that no speculation about the link between his death and Iran had yet been corroborated by the US investigation. In the USA, the police maintain “ambiguity”referred to the Jerusalem Post.
The Norfolk District Attorney’s office indicated Wednesday (Dec. 17) afternoon that the homicide investigation remained “active and ongoing” and no arrests had yet been made. The spokesman, David Linton, would not even say whether the teacher was the target of the attacker or a victim of circumstance, because “investigators are still talking to people”.
The day before, the chief of the Brookline Police Department, Jennifer Paster, warned that “To protect the integrity of the investigation, we are limited in the information we can share at this time and ask for the community’s understanding and patience.”. Neighbors, students and friends of Nuno Loureiro held a vigil at his home on Wednesday night (December 17), still in disbelief at what happened.
Nuno Loureiro grew up in Viseu and studied at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, before obtaining his PhD at Imperial College in London. “An acclaimed theoretical physicist and fusion scientist, Loureiro joined the MIT faculty in 2016. His research has addressed complex problems that lurk at the heart of fusion vacuum chambers and in the far reaches of the universe.”indicated the university in the statement mourning his death.
Loureiro had said he hoped his work would shape the future. “It’s no exaggeration to say that MIT is the place to go to find solutions to humanity’s biggest problems,” he said when he was appointed to lead the plasma science laboratory last year. “Fusion energy will change the course of human history,” he added. In the USA he was distinguished, in 2017, with the Career Award from the National Science Foundation and, more recently, in 2025, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, granted by then president Joe Biden.
Could his murder, at the entrance to the building and without signs of forced entry, be related to the work he did? Suggestions are multiplying on social media that this could be the case, with speculation increasing because there is no progress in the police investigation, not even an indication of whether it was an attempted robbery or not. The FBI, which offered its assistance in the investigation, only ruled out the possibility that the crime was related to the shooting (days earlier) at Brown University.
Another speculation is that it is an anti-Semitic crime. Some sources initially said that the professor was Jewish (perhaps because there were Hanukah decorations in the building where he lived), but this information is not confirmed. At least one of the family’s neighbors (Loureiro was married and had three children) was Jewish, and told the newspaper Boston Globe who was lighting one of the candles on the menorah when he heard the shots. When he opened the door, he found the injured teacher. Loureiro would end up dying on Tuesday, in the hospital.