1991 University of Iowa shooting

1991 mass shooting in Iowa City, Iowa, US

The University of Iowa shooting was a mass shooting that occurred in Iowa City, Iowa, on November 1, 1991. Gang Lu, a 28 year old former graduate student at the University of Iowa, killed three members of the Physics and Astronomy Department faculty, an Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, and a fellow student, then seriously injured another student working at the university's campus, before committing suicide.

Gang Lu (; c. 1962 – November 1, 1991), was a 28 year old Chinese graduate student at the University of Iowa who had received his doctoral degree in physics and astronomy from the university in May 1991. The 18 year old Lu began studying physics at Peking University in Beijing, where he passed the CUSPEA exam in 1984 and was admitted to study in the United States, becoming a graduate student at the University of Iowa. As a graduate student, Lu was primarily a loner who was perceived by at least one other graduate student to have a psychological problem if challenged and was reported to have had abusive tantrums. Lu was infuriated because his dissertation, titled Study of the "Critical Ionization Velocity" Effect by Particle in Cell Simulation, did not receive the prestigious D. C. Spriestersbach Dissertation Prize, which included a monetary award of $2,500. The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 led many Chinese students to become eager to stay in the United States, and Lu believed that winning the prize would have made it easier for him to get a job and not have to return to China. Normally, Lu would have received a postdoctoral researcher position, but there was not enough money to support him. In the months prior to the shooting, Lu was still living in Iowa City and wrote five letters explaining the reasons for his planned actions. According to university officials, four of the five letters were written in English and one was written in Chinese, intended to be mailed to news organizations. The letters have never been released to the public. However, Edwin Chen's book Deadly Scholarship includes a statement by Lu intended to be read after his attack and suicide, which Laura Hamlett characterized as a manifesto; and, in translation, a letter by Lu to his sister.

Writer Jo Ann Beard wrote an acclaimed personal essay based in part on the killings. Her essay, entitled "The Fourth State of Matter", was originally published in The New Yorker in June 1996. It appeared in the 1997 edition of Best American Essays. The essay was later included in her collection of personal essays, The Boys of My Youth. Beard worked as an editor for a physics journal at the university and was a colleague of the victims. She had been close friends with Goertz. Loosely based on Gang Lu's story, Chinese director Chen Shi zheng made a feature film, Dark Matter, starring Liu Ye and Meryl Streep. However, the story in Dark Matter has substantial differences in plot and character motivation. The film won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007. The educational series Discovering Psychology, "Cultural Psychology" (episode 26, updated edition) discusses Gang Lu (at the 3:50 minute mark). A documentary about the life of the lone survivor, Miya Rodolfo Sioson, entitled Miya of the Quiet Strength, was released in 2009.