Liviu Librescu, a Romanian-born Israeli and Holocaust survivor, was shot dead on April 16, 2007, during the massacre at Virginia Tech carried out by Cho Seung Hui, a student at the college. Librescu was teaching his engineering class, in Room 204 in the Norris Hall Engineering Building, when he heard the shooting and blocked the door to the lecture room with his body. When Cho forced his way into the room Librescu threw himself in front of the attacker, giving his students time to escape out of the window. Librescu was one of the 32 people murdered by Cho, who later shot himself.

Librescu was born in 1930 into a Jewish family in Ploiesti, Romania. During the Second World War the family was sent to a labour camp in Transnistria and then to a central ghetto in the city of Focsani. The day of Librescu's death coincided with Israel's Holocaust remembrance day.

Librescu was educated at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, graduating in 1953 with a degree in Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering. He then took a master’s degree at the Polytechnic University. In 1969, he received his Ph.D. degree in Fluid Mechanics at the Academia de Stiinte din Romania.

Between 1953 and 1975 he was a researcher at the Institute of Applied Mechanics, the Institute of Fluid Mechanics, and the Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Aerospace Constructions of the Romanian Academy of Science. He also found work at a government aerospace company.

Librescu wanted to emigrate to Israel but the Romanian communist regime refused him permission. When he applied for emigration, he was fired from his job. But in 1978 he was given permission to leave after the Prime Minister of Israel, Menachem Begin, appealed directly to Romania's President Ceausescu. Between 1979 and 1986, Librescu was Professor of Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering at Tel-Aviv University.

In 1985, Librescu went to the Virginia Tech for a sabbatical year, but eventually made the move permanent. In his research, Librescu specialised in composite structures and aeroelasticity. His work included the theory and applications of sandwich-type structures; aeroelasticity of structures in supersonic and hypersonic flow fields; the instability of laminated composite structures under various loading systems; the aerodynamics of supersonic flows; and the behaviour of structures to explosions underwater and in the air.

He received several US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grants and was a visiting professor at the University La Sapienza in Rome and at the Tel Aviv University in Israel.

He published numerous papers in scientific journals and presented a number of papers at several International Congresses on Thermal Stresses. He was the author and co-author of a number of books including: Thin-walled composite beams: Theory and Application (2006); Random Vibrations and Reliability of Composite Structures (1992); and Elastostatics and Kinetics of Anisotropic and Heterogeneous Shell-Type Structures (1976). He was a member of the editorial board of seven scientific journals.

He received several honorary degrees, including a doctorate from the Bucharest-based Academy of Sciences in 1969, and an honorary degree from the Bucharest Polytechnic University in 2000. And he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Shipbuilding of Ukraine and Foreign Fellow of the Academy of Engineering of Armenia.

After his death, the President of Romania awarded Librescu the Star of Romania Order in the grade of Great Cross, as a “token of high appreciation” for his scientific and academic achievements as well as “for his heroic acts during the tragic events of April 16th 2007 in the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University campus, when Professor Librescu saved his students' lives at the cost of his own".

He is survived by his wife, Marilena, and their two sons.

Liviu Librescu, engineer and lecturer, was born on August 18, 1930. He was killed on April 16, 2007, aged 76