By Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN
(CNN) — As college students across the country wrap up their fall 2025 semesters, finishing grueling finals and preparing to head home for the holidays, students at Brown University in Rhode Island ended theirs abruptly after a mass shooting on campus Saturday killed two of their own and wounded nine others.
The campus remains on edge, plagued with fear and overwhelming anxiety with the perpetrator still at large. Authorities are pursuing a new lead based on photos and videos of someone taken hours before the attack, and the FBI has announced a $50,000 reward leading to an arrest and conviction. A person of interest was previously detained in connection with the attack but has since been cleared.
While they come from different backgrounds, the two teen victims who died in the shooting – an aspiring neurosurgeon who attended high school in Virginia and an Alabama church’s “bright light” – are now bound by the same tragedy as loved ones mourn their loss.
“These were two young people whose amazing promise was extinguished too soon,” Brown University President Christina H. Paxson said of the victims in a statement Tuesday.
Here’s what we know so far about the victims, who were at the forefront of their collegiate experience:
A soul that reverberated throughout the community
MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, 18, was identified as a Brown student killed in Saturday’s shooting, according to Paxson and a GoFundMe organized by his family.
Despite being a first-year student, Umurzokov left an impression on everyone he met. He was known for being “driven, conscientious and disciplined,” Brown’s president said.
Umurzokov, a dual citizen of the US and Uzbekistan, planned to study biochemistry and molecular biology to further his dream of being a doctor, Paxson said.
The freshman’s roommate, Khimari Manns, told CNN affiliate WBZ Umorzokov reached out as soon as roommate assignments were made as the young man began his first semester of college.
“He was kind,” Manns said, but, “most importantly, he was just present. Whatever you asked him to do, he was always there for you.”
“His soul truly did reverberate throughout the community,” the roommate said.
In its early days, the GoFundMe for Umurzokov has become an online collection of personal tributes with friends and acquaintances sharing memories that range from applying to college together to small acts of kindness they say defined how he showed up in their lives.
“I have been moved by his current and former classmates’ descriptions of him as someone who generously shared his intelligence, humor and kindness with all those who knew him,” Paxson said.
His family, devastated by their loss, described him as “incredibly kind, funny and smart” in the GoFundMe.
“He continues to be my family’s biggest role model in all aspects,” the GoFundMe from his family continued. “He always lent a helping hand to anyone in need without hesitation, and was the most kind-hearted person our family knew.”
The spokesperson for Uzbekistan’s Foreign Minister Bakhtiyor Saidov and the US ambassador to Uzbekistan, Jonathan Henick, ex