Liviu Librescu

Liviu Librescu was born in 1930 in Ploiești

Librescu was born in 1930 to a Jewish family in Ploiești, Romania. During World War II his family was sent to a labor camp in Transnistria and later to a ghetto in Focșani.

He studied aerospace engineering at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, graduating in 1952, and earned a master's degree there. In 1969 he received a Ph.D. in fluid mechanics from the Romanian Academy of Sciences.

From 1953 to 1975 he worked as a researcher at institutes of applied mechanics and fluid mechanics in Bucharest. His career stalled after he refused to swear allegiance to the Ceaușescu government, and he was fired when he asked to emigrate to Israel. Prime Minister Menachem Begin asked Nicolae Ceaușescu to let the family go, and they moved to Israel in 1978.

From 1979 to 1986 he was a professor of aeronautical and mechanical engineering at Tel Aviv University and also taught at the Technion. In 1985 he went to Virginia Tech on sabbatical and stayed there as a professor of engineering science and mechanics. His research focused on aeroelasticity and aerodynamics.

On April 16, 2007, during the Virginia Tech shooting, he held his classroom door shut while students escaped through the windows. He was shot and killed, one of 32 people murdered that day, which fell on Holocaust Remembrance Day in the Hebrew calendar. He was buried in Ra'anana and was awarded the Order of the Star of Romania after his death.