Beloved Scientist Slain At UNC Chapel Hill

Zijie Yan, UNC scientist, has been identified as the victim in Monday’s UNC-Chapel Hill campus shooting at Caudill Laboratories. Yan’s student, Tailei Qi, was arrested and charged with his murder.

Yan joined UNC-Chapel Hill faculty in 2019. He ran a lab in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences with two undergraduate students, one research assistant and three PhD students, including Qi.

According to a Charlotte Observer report, “Last year, the Yan Research Group congratulated Qi on publishing his first paper, and UNC had promoted his work on “optical tweezers” earlier this month.