29-Year-Old MIT Professor Suddenly Drops Dead While Playing Basketball on Campus

A young math instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology died suddenly on campus last month while he was playing basketball, the school has announced.

According to MIT News, applied mathematics teacher Peter Baddoo was on a campus basketball court in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Feb. 15 when he collapsed.

The university offered few details about the incident, other than to note the 29-year-old died “suddenly” and unexpectedly.

“Peter Baddoo, an instructor in the Department of Mathematics, passed away suddenly on Feb. 15 while playing basketball on campus,” the report from MIT News stated.

It is not clear if Baddoo had any underlying medical conditions.

No cause of death is available at this time.

Badoo had been a part of the faculty since 2021, the school said in a statement.

“Baddoo joined the MIT Department of Mathematics in January 2021,” the statement said. “Prior to this, he was an [Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council] Doctoral Prize Fellow at Imperial College London.”

Baddoo studied mathematics in his native country, the U.K. He received his undergraduate degree there at the University of Oxford and his Ph.D. from Cambridge University in England.

The young scholar made the move to New England, where he specialized in the fields of “complex function theory, fluid dynamics, and machine learning.”

Professor Michel Goemans, the head of the university’s math department, remembered Baddoo for his ability to connect with students.

“Peter was an excellent lecturer — clear, composed, thoughtful, and kind. He was extremely popular among his students,” Goemans said.

One student told the school paper Baddoo’s passion for mathematics actually inspired him to pursue studying the field.

“I took Peter’s class, and I walked out of that class actually liking math,” said the student, who was not named. “I was assured that I want to study more of math and pursue a minor.”

Professor John Bush also memorialized his late colleague in a statement.

“Peter was an outstanding, self-propelling researcher, a master of complex function theory with a burgeoning interest in machine learning, and had several collaborations within the U.S. and farther afield,” Bush said. “He had an exceptionally promising future in academia. He was a deeply respected and valued member of my research group and the broader applied math community. He will be sorely missed.”

Baddoo is survived by his mother, father and his two sisters, and he was engaged to be married at the time of his death.

MIT summed up the burgeoning academic as a “respected and admired scholar, teacher, mentor, and colleague.”