As the investigation unfolds, more information is coming to light about the suspect involved in the tragic deaths of an MIT scientist and two Brown University students. A senior Portuguese nuclear fusion official suggested to the Daily Mail that the shooter may have targeted the victims as they represented the success he failed to achieve.

Authorities identified the victim as Nuno Loureiro, a 47-year-old esteemed fusion-energy researcher and director at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center. He was fatally shot on December 15, succumbing to his injuries shortly after. The alleged perpetrator, Claudio Neves-Valente, a 48-year-old former physics prodigy from Portugal, reportedly took his own life following a multi-state pursuit by law enforcement.

The scope of the investigation expanded significantly after Neves-Valente was linked to an earlier mass shooting at Brown University. On December 13, he allegedly opened fire inside a campus building, resulting in the deaths of two students and wounding nine others. Further investigation confirmed his involvement in the fatal shooting of Loureiro at his residence in Brookline, Massachusetts, two days later.

Claudio Neves-Valente, a native of Portugal, had previously been a student at Brown University, studying physics from fall 2000 until spring 2001, before withdrawing by 2003, according to Brown University President Christina Paxson. She clarified that Neves-Valente had no recent connections to the university at the time of the tragic campus incident.

Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts released this image showing the man identified in deadly shootings at both Brown University in Rhode Island and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. (Justice Department)

According to the Daily Mail, Dr. Bruno Goncalves, president of Portugal’s Institute of Plasma and Nuclear Fusion, said Neves-Valente did not maintain any known relationship with Loureiro in the decades after they studied together there, underscoring that the attack was not the result of an ongoing rivalry or dispute.

Instead, Goncalves said Neves-Valente may have fixated on what Loureiro had come to represent.

“The strongest theory is that Claudio saw Nuno as a symbol of the academic and professional success that he himself had failed to achieve,” Goncalves said.

He stressed that the resentment was one-sided and did not exist during their student years.

“It’s not a rivalry that existed at the time,” Goncalves said, adding that it “developed later.”

Goncalves also rejected claims that institutional pressure or academic culture bore responsibility for the violence, telling the Daily Mail that Portugal’s elite technical universities provide psychological support and that many graduates successfully transition into other careers.

MIT professor Nuno Loureiro was shot at this Brookline apartment building. (Michael Dorgan/Fox News Digital)

“It was not the course,” he said. “It was how Claudio chose to respond to the course.”

While noting that Neves-Valente may have struggled after leaving elite academia, Goncalves emphasized that others in similar circumstances did not resort to violence.

“It’s strange,” Goncalves said, according to the Daily Mail, “that he didn’t just try to make something of himself in another field, like many IST students do.”

Images of Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente were displayed on a projector screen at a news briefing in Providence, Rhode Island. The 48-year-old former student and Portuguese national has been identified as the gunman behind a mass shooting that killed two students and wounded nine. (Andrea Margolis/Fox News Digital)

Law enforcement officials said Loureiro had no recent contact with Neves-Valente and described the attack as a deliberate, unilateral act of criminal violence carried out against a victim unconnected to his personal or professional failures.

At the time of his death, Loureiro was widely regarded as one of the leading figures in fusion-energy research.

MIT professor Nuno Loureiro was shot at his home on Monday, Dec. 15. (Jake Belcher)

Loureiro met last year with Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), both at MIT and at an international fusion summit in Rome that brought together senior government officials, scientists, and global energy leaders.

He was also recently named a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor awarded by the U.S. government to early-career researchers, with recipients recognized at the White House.

Goncalves told Fox News Digital previously that Loureiro was “leading one of the top research institutes in fusion” and was “very well known and recognized internationally for his contributions and his leadership.”

Loureiro lived in a Brookline condominium with his wife and three daughters. His mother-in-law was visiting at the time of the shooting, according to the Daily Mail. Friends and neighbors described the family as quiet and close-knit, and authorities have said there is no indication Loureiro anticipated any threat.

Stepheny Price covers crime, including missing persons, homicides and migrant crime. Send story tips to stepheny.price@fox.com.