UNC-Chapel Hill shooting victim ID’d as Zijie Yan, gunman’s professor

August 29, 2023

The University of North Carolina faculty member who was shot and killed by accused gunman Tailei Qi was identified as a professor and the shooter’s academic adviser who recently co-wrote a paper with him.

Zijie Yan, an associate professor in the university’s Department of Applied Physical Sciences, was killed around 1 p.m. Monday inside the school’s Caudill Laboratories, triggering a lockdown, WRAL News reports.

“This loss is devastating and the shooting damages the trust and safety that we so often take for granted in our campus community,” UNC Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz said during a press conference Monday.

“We will work to rebuild that sense of trust and safety within our community and our hearts are with the family of our fellow faculty member, those who are personally connected to the victim and those traumatized by this senseless act of violence,” Guskiewicz added.

Yan, who earned his doctorate in material engineering from New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, had been with UNC since 2019 following stints as an assistant professor at Clarkson University.

Qi, 34, a doctoral student who was arrested nearly two hours after the gunfire rang out, worked closely with Yan’s research group over the last year, with his social media posts suggesting he was irritated by the group in the past.

University of North Carolina Professor Zijie Yan was identified as the victim of Monday's shooting in the college's lab. — University of North Carolina Professor Zijie Yan was identified as the victim of Monday’s shooting in the college’s lab.

Suspect Tailei Qi was a graduate student and member of Yan's research group, with his social media account suggesting he resented the group. — Suspect Tailei Qi was a graduate student and member of Yan’s research group, with his social media account suggesting he resented the group.

In the summer and fall of 2022, Qi made several posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, claiming members of his group were “tattletales” who often reported him to their “PI,” or principal investigator, a faculty member overseeing the students.

It’s unclear if Yan was the PI referenced in Qi’s posts.

“Just have a talk with my PI and get his promise,” he wrote in one post. “He should have more experience to handle with these girls and tattletales. Then, we can just get ourselves out of these stupid topic.”

Qi was arrested nearly two hours after the shooting caused a campus-wide lockdown.

His social media account appeared normal until May 30, 2023, where he bemoaned having a lack of friends and claimed his fellow students were antagonizing him.

“These kind of people may be a good man actually, but might not be a sincere friend,” he wrote. “For a Phd student, pay much attention to working time every day is really childish…I know many people want to me to show them working and working, but no…that’s not human at all.”

On July 30, Qi, Yan and another researcher published a paper together on the subject of nanoparticles. The following day, the suspected gunman put up a post looking for friends.