Yes certainly this is a life altering event for that second professor who was on the list. Bet he cherishes every day.
The things I am reading about Prof. Klug are just heartbreaking. Young father of two; beloved little league coach; kind and gentle man. And obviously brilliant and accomplished. These are the hardest things to hear.
If this guy made any overt or covert threats in social media, he could have been sent by his department for a threat assessment. These are done in academic and work environments. Violence in the workplace (and a grad student in a department would likely be considered in his workplace) is not taken lightly.
So our free country should let crazy, mentally ill people do harm to themselves and other people?
Was he still a student at UCLA? I don’t think so. So his employer would have needed to send him for an evaluation, right?
This is very, very sad. The whole situation is vry very sad.
Articles said the shooting was over a grade and the accusation that the professor had taken some of his code. Sounds like he was still affiliated with the department. Would he have had open access to the engineering building if not a student? Are the buildings locked?
*ETA- did some checking-- article say he finished the program in 2013 and most recently lived in Minnesota (where he killed his wife, I believe). That’s a long time to hold a grudge about a grade!
^No, the shooter was no longer a grad student at UCLA. He was awarded his PhD in 2013. This was a dispute over IP (code the shooter had written) that he claimed the professors had “stolen” from him and given to another student.
Professor Klug was a well liked and well respected member of the community I live in. My neighbor’s son was on his little league team. We are all heartbroken for his family.
He was listed on the current members of Klug Research Group.
Not sure this website is up-to-date:
So sorry @SyrAlum . The shooter was clearly disturbed. It’s pretty standard, I believe, that research, patents, etc, are, in general connected to your university,employer? It is unfortunate that he was not at least evaluated or banned from campus based on his online statements. But, like most of these tragic events, this level of violence could not usually be predicted.
Really? A stolen IP code?? Are you kidding me? I’m sure that the shooter has other important things to worry about. @coolweather I agree with you completely.
@JasmineArmani, not sure if you read the whole thread. It isn’t an IP address, it is “intellectual property” theft that the shooter claimed occurred (I think it was computer code – but just clarifying that it was more than an IP address).
One report I heard on the news said someone who was familiar with the department and the killer’s relationship with Prof. Klug stated that the killer was a subpar PhD student and that he only managed to finish thanks to Klug’s exceedingly supportive handholding efforts to facilitate his finishing his PhD in order to graduate. He also said the accusations of IP theft of computer code is completely bogus.
If the grudge was over an actual course grade as opposed to Klug’s/dissertation committee’s assessment of his research proposals and/or his dissertation itself, that would be exceedingly odd. Course grades in PhD programs only matter up to the point one does satisfactorily enough to progress to taking & passing one’s oral and written exams.
Once that stage is finished and one’s dissertation topic is approved and dissertation research/writeup is started, course grades shouldn’t be a factor anymore judging by my older relatives/friends’ experience in PhD programs and successfully graduating with their PhDs. This includes some who completed engineering PhDs in peer or higher ranked programs. For most in the dissertation research/writeup stage, asking about/caring about one’s course grades in the first 2-3 years of one’s PhD program would almost be regarded as the equivalent of a college junior/senior being asked about/caring about his/her high school grades…especially those in 9th-10th grade.
@intparent Thanks for clarifying.
On a slightly different note, my D reports that some profs are making their finals optional in light of the incident and stress/distraction students might be feeling. My D’s prof apparently feels anxiety is for sissies though, and had a pop quiz today.
When I was at Michigan, there was a gunman and a fatal shooting in a dorm on North Campus a few days before finals in 1981. Two people were killed. Three of my HS friends lived in the dorm, including my best friend from HS. The guys I knew in the dorm were on the hall where the shooter was active. My best friend’s roommate’s boyfriend was killed – and my friend still had to take finals. She was already on academic probation, and ended up flunking out after that semester.
@intparent- looks like someone is channeling Emily Litella ;))
@intparent That’s horrible, I think (hope) most colleges now have policies around something like that…
@anomander Right before my DS takes the SAT on Saturday, I’m going to send him a text message…“Anxiety is for sissies!”.
Looks like it took the shooter at least 7 years to complete his PhD (2006-2013) and there might have been some latent hostility associated with this time as a PhD student under Klug. With respect to stealing his computer code, I think it happens more often on university campuses across the US than one might think. As a MS graduate student some 25+ years ago, we were required to do a major project for a graduate engineering course. I spoke to the professor about possible projects I was exploring. He gave me some detail information on a specific area as a possible course project. I completed the project and I thought the project was such a novel idea (engineering, iterative steps to solving simultaneous equations, computer-aid graphics, etc.), that I enter some verbiage on the cover sheet of the completed project submittal about the fact that the project code, etc., …“was copyrighted, all rights reserved” by the author. I append a note to the Professor that the included copyrighted notes was just a joke. The Professor required us to submit the technical engineering information which was the basis for the code, the entire computer code on paper and allowed him admin access to see the underlying code, be able to run the computer program and be able to download the code. This project was done during the age of mainframe computers.
After completing my MSE and returned to my employer (who paid for the entire cost for the MSE program), another fellow graduate student (still a MSE student/TA at the university) who was a friend of mine and took the same course as myself, called me to let me know that the professor was using my computer code it is entirety for a commercially released program. I wasn’t concerned about this issue, as my only goal was to complete my degree within the allotted one-year time frame.
We do not know what are the specifics behind the Intellectual Property claim and who ultimately “owned” it and if the program resulted in a viable commercial property or whether the “other” student stand to benefit immensely from the shooter’s work product. Clearly, the shooter became unstable and went over the edge for whatever reason, but to say his claim was bogus might prove to be false in the long run. A lot of commercially available products came about during a student time on university campuses or through their research work while being full-time students (both undergraduate and graduate students). Even in the work place, supervisors and managers routinely attached their names to patents of their subordinates, although they made no contribution to the technical work that gave rise to the patent.
The “ownership” of student/faculty work by the university isn’t a new idea, and most companies have employees sign away their “ownership” rights when they take their jobs. Even a supbar PhD student understands this. The shooting was the work of an unstable person, not the work of someone who’s upset over intellectual property.
There clearly were some serious issues with the killer while he was still a student judging from that report I heard. As for the length of time to complete his engineering PhD, while that is a bit above the norm, it’s not necessarily an indication of subpar performance in itself.
A few engineering PhD friends I knew completed their degrees after 5-6 years with academic awards and much subsequent academic/professional successes.