University mourns nanoscientist killed on UNC campus

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Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the day after a scientist was fatally shot on campus.Credit: Kaitlin McKeown/The News & Observer via AP/Alamy

The killing of a scientist on campus has left a US university community reeling. Nanoscience researcher Zijie Yan was fatally shot at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill on Monday 28 August. Faculty members and students are expressing grief and shock — and university chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz has announced plans to honour Yan’s memory.

“He was a beloved colleague, mentor and friend to many on our campus,” Guskiewicz wrote in a statement. “My leadership team and I have met with his colleagues and family to express our condolences on behalf of our campus. Please join me in thinking and praying for his family and loved ones during this difficult time.” Yan had two young children.

After UNC police were notified of shots fired in the Caudill Laboratories building early on Monday afternoon, the campus went into lockdown for several hours. Tailei Qi, a PhD student in Yan’s lab, was taken into custody and later charged with first-degree murder.

Yan was an associate professor in the department of applied physical sciences. In his research, he used laser beams as ‘optical tweezers’ to control and manipulate nanoparticles with precision. The work had potential applications in various fields, including photochemistry and nanomedicine. Last month, Yan and Qi co-authored a paper exploring the use of light to bind metal nanoparticles1.

Zijie Yan used laser beams to control and manipulate nanoparticles.Credit: UNC-Chapel Hill

Julian Rucker, a social psychologist at UNC-Chapel Hill, told Nature he was walking back from a research talk with colleagues when he heard sirens and got text alerts about a shooter. The group sheltered in a laboratory until the lockdown was lifted. Rucker is still struggling to plan how to address his students the next time he meets them. “Finding words to validate these experiences is already difficult, let alone something that hits even closer to home,” he says.

The university will ring the bells in the Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower, a central feature of the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, on Wednesday at 1.02 p.m. — the time of the shooting — and ask for a moment of silence in honour of Yan. “I think that will be an important moment for his family and his colleagues to grieve and for us as a community to grieve,” Rucker says.

Alexander Kabanov, a nanomedicine specialist at UNC-Chapel Hill, shared his grief on Twitter. “We are all profoundly saddened by the tragic loss of Professor Zijie Yan,” he wrote. “Yesterday’s events on our campus have left us all shaken.”

Cole Sorensen, a chemistry PhD student at the university, posted a photo of a police officer with a gun near his workstation in Caudill Laboratories. “Today was a hard day in Chapel Hill,” he wrote. The university will return to classes and normal operations on Thursday.

Rucker has encountered several episodes of violence during his academic career. “Every step along the way there has been some kind of major incident of gun violence. There was an active-shooter event that took place during my undergrad experience,” he says. “So it’s frustratingly commonplace.”

As the police continue to investigate the shooting at UNC, the motivations remain unclear. Ragy Girgis, a psychiatrist at Columbia University in New York City who has studied killings in academic settings, says that it is difficult to identify consistent patterns that might help to predict and prevent such tragedies.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02724-0

Qi, T., Nan, F. & Yan, Z. Adv. Opt. Mater. https://doi.org/10.1002/adom.202301158 (2023).

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