MIT student found dead in research lab

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology student was found dead on campus yesterday, just a month before he would have received his electrical engineering degree, school officials said.

The death was under investigation last night, and suicide had not been ruled out, said the Middlesex district attorney's office.

The student's body was found by another student just before 2 p.m. in a research space on the second floor of MIT's Center for Materials Science and Engineering, university spokesman Arthur Jones said. He declined to release the student's name or cause of death, but said the man was in his mid-20s, was from out of state, and was simultaneously earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in electrical engineering.

The undergraduate degree would have been awarded at MIT's commencement June 4, Jones said.

After being called to MIT, State Police spent about two hours collecting evidence in the science building off Vassar Street and ruled out the possibility of foul play, said Jones. The discovery cast a shadow over yesterday's 1:30 p.m. dedication and reception for MIT's Stata Center, the long-delayed $300 million building designed by architect Frank Gehry.

After the body was found, some administrators were called away from the event, an MIT official said.

A spokesman for the Middlesex district attorney confirmed yesterday that the investigation is ongoing and declined to give details.

The student's death followed by less than three months the discovery of the body of another MIT student in the Charles River. Daniel S. Mun, 20, a biology major from Missouri, was last seen at his fraternity house on Dec. 5, 2003. His body was found floating in the river on Feb. 28; authorities later ruled the death a suicide, Jones said.

The last student death before Mun's was that of Julie Carpenter, also a suicide, in April 2001, according to Jones. The sophomore died after ingesting cyanide; her family filed a $20 million lawsuit against MIT last year, alleging that school officials did not respond adequately to harassment of Carpenter by a classmate.

The sixth MIT student to commit suicide since 1998, Carpenter's death helped bring about a major expansion of the school's mental health services later that year.

Jones said a campuswide e-mail about the most recent student death was being prepared late yesterday, and counseling would be available.