Lu killed 47-year-old professor Christoph K. Goertz, 44-year-old chairman Dwight R. Nicholson, assistant professor Robert Alan Smith, 27-year-old fellow graduate student Linhua Shan, 56-year-old assistant vice president for academic affairs T. Anne Cleary and seriously wounded 23-year-old student employee Miya Rodolfo-Sioson before committing suicide. Lu was infuriated because his dissertation 'Study of the "Critical Ionization Velocity" Effect by Particle-in-Cell Simulation' did not receive the prestigious D.C. Spriestersbach Dissertation Prize. In the months prior to the shooting Lu wrote five letters explaining the reasons for his planned actions.