Claudio Neves Valente, the suspect in the killing this week of an M.I.T. professor in Massachusetts, studied physics with the victim in the 1990s and graduated at the top of their class, according to the university.
A spokesman for Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal’s premier school for science and engineering, said by phone that Mr. Neves Valente and Dr. Nuno Loureiro, the victim, studied in the same class from 1995 until 2000. Mr. Neves Valente received the higher mark, the spokesman said.
The revelation came as members of the institute’s small community of nuclear fusion scientists mourned the loss of one of their own on Friday.
While fellow scientists remembered Dr. Loureiro with warmth and admiration for his accomplishments in the field of nuclear fusion and plasma, no one seemed to recall Mr. Neves Valente or his time there as an undergraduate.
The U.S. attorney in Massachusetts, Leah Foley, said she believed that the two men knew one another from that time, having studied physics in the same cohort for five years. But the university offered few details of Mr. Neves Valente’s time there other than a confirmation that he had graduated at the top of his class, beating out Mr. Loureiro for the top honor.
After graduation Mr. Neves Valente briefly worked as a teaching assistant before moving to the United States, according to the Diário da República, the Portuguese government’s official gazette.
Dr. Loureiro, however, remained at the school, as a researcher and then team leader at its Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion.
In a statement sent to journalists, the school recalled “a brilliant colleague, with whom it was a scientific and personal pleasure to collaborate.”
His colleagues remembered a star in his field.
“He was really a top guy in his area, recognized internationally,” said Bruno Gonçalves, the director of the institute. “For our community, it was a loss for us when Nuno went to the U.S., but we were very proud that he achieved this position.”
“I think he was one of the first Portuguese to arrive at a top institution in the U.S.,” he added.
Dr. Gonçalves last met with Dr. Loureiro at a conference last year in Rome, where the two were attending an event hosted by the International Atomic Energy Agency on fusion energy. The men sat together over lunch talking about Dr. Loureiro’s new role, where he was heavily involved in raising funds to advance research on nuclear fusion and plasma.
“He told me he was doing a lot of management and was searching for research funding,” Dr. Gonçalves recalled. “He was joking that he didn’t have enough time for theory and modeling.”
Despite Dr. Loureiro’s shift to management, it was his teaching that left the strongest impression on Dr. Gonçalves.
“He was the kind of guy who went up to the chalkboard and started writing out equations and explaining everything,” he said. “The students loved it. He was like an Einstein without the crazy hair.”
Daphné Anglès contributed research from Paris.
Azam Ahmed is international investigative correspondent for The Times. He has reported on Wall Street scandals, the War in Afghanistan and violence and corruption in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
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