Laura Crimaldi, Globe Staff
MIT Professor Nuno Loureiro was an “exceptional scientist and a valued collaborator,” Ryusuke Numata, an information science professor at the University of Hyogo in Japan, said Sunday in a statement to the Globe.
Tributes to Loureiro have poured in from across the globe since he was shot and killed Monday night at the entrance to his home in Brookline. Loureiro, 47, was the director of MIT’s Plasma Science Fusion Center and a married father with three daughters.
Numata and Loureiro collaborated on scientific papers going back about 16 years.
“He had an uncommon ability to identify the essential physics of complex plasma phenomena and to express it with clarity and rigor,” Numata wrote. “His work played a decisive role in shaping the direction of theory, experiments, and observations in the study of magnetic reconnection over the past two decades.”
Numata described Loureiro as “approachable, and always welcoming, with a rich sense of humor.”
“Working with him was genuinely enlightening, both scientifically and personally,” Numata wrote.
“He will be remembered not only for the depth and lasting influence of his scientific contributions, but also as a leader who helped guide the field and the community.”
Alexa Gagosz, Samantha J. Gross and Emma Platoff, Globe Staff
Providence — The holidays in New England — almost. Snow was in the air on picturesque College Hill, where festive lights twinkled in the gathering dusk and candles winked from windows of the older homes looking on to the campus of Brown University.
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Just a few more exams stood between students and winter break — trips home, flights abroad, presents ready to be wrapped, the anticipation of welcome holiday traditions. At a nearby station, firefighters were heating up leftovers for dinner. Twelve days to Christmas.
In the space of 20 minutes, that idyllic scene shattered.
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Globe staff
A mass shooting in Providence, a murder in Brookline and finally, a suicide in Salem, N.H. New England – and the nation – was gripped by the tragic outbursts of gun violence over the course of five long days and nights. The gunshots led to a flurry of press conferences, social media conjecture and surveillance footage of the suspect, and the investigation concluded on Thursday night with one last death.