Graduate student violence is more common that it should be. For example, you hear about suicides every year.

I can't help but suspect that sometimes it may be related to graduate school itself, which can be stressful and unforgiving, with minimal support, and where supervisors often hold both academic power over their students' futures and financial power over their livelihoods. (And switching supervisors, even at the same institution, typically requires restarting research from scratch.) It can't be good when, after a lifetime of top-tier success, you are facing failure for the first time, with no preparation for handling it and no obvious path forward.

Academic success perhaps. The killer and Nuno Loureiro, the MIT professor he killed, were in the same class at Instituto Superior Técnico (Portugal's leading engineering school). Loureiro had a distinguished career at MIT while the killer was homeless.

This article was helpful:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/us/mit-professor-shooting...

https://archive.is/qypoz

I don't know much about the suspect, but I do know that people have been saying for years that they go into deep debt to get degrees, even in things that are supposed to be respected or in demand, and then it turns out there is actually no job market or success path for that degree. I assume the implication is it had something to do with this kind of frustration. (Though the suspect went to school two decades ago and did not receive a degree)

Since this site has a lot of people who have successful tech careers, many of us are isolated from these stresses.

But honestly, this guy's turn to violence makes me suspect he had some serious issues driving him, possibly in the mental health realm. Most people, even economically distressed people, won't turn to murder.

This whole post is filled with a ridiculous amount of unfounded assumptions.