The Westmont College community is mourning the death of an alumnus — an engineering professor and father who was killed by a student in a murder-suicide that occurred on the UCLA campus Wednesday.
William Klug, 39, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, died of a gunshot wound inside an engineering building near the campus’ south side, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
The shooting occurred around 10 a.m. and Los Angeles police were still investigating the incident, according to UCLA officials.
“We’re deeply saddened by this tragic news, and send our condolences to his wife, Mary Elise, also a Westmont graduate, and their family,” Gayle D. Beebee, Westmont president, wrote in a release.
The Los Angeles Times was reporting that Klug was an El Segundo resident who was married with two young children.
Colleagues said Klug was a gentle, kind person and an excellent student at Westmont who stayed connected by attending the Summer Research Symposium each year.
According to UCLA’s department of mechanical and aerospace engineering site, he also led the Klug Research Group, which studied “problems at the interface of mechanics and biology.”
Klug graduated from Westmont in 1997 with an undergraduate degree in engineering physics. He obtained a master’s degree in civil engineering at UCLA in 1999 and his PhD in mechanical engineering from Caltech in 2003.
The shooter, who took his own life, was identified Thursday as Mainak Sarkar, a former doctoral student who had accused the victim of stealing his computer code and giving it to someone else, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Klug had been the target of Sarkar’s anger on social media for months, the Times reported.
— Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at bholland@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
