MIT Professor Dies in Bike Crash at Harvard Bridge Intersection

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor died Wednesday from injuries sustained in a bike crash on Memorial Drive nearly two weeks earlier, according to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office.

The professor, 37-year-old Thomas Rose, was riding his bicycle when he was involved in a collision with a motor vehicle at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Memorial Drive at roughly 6 a.m. on Aug. 21. Rose was transported to the hospital after the crash and died on Sept. 2, according to the DA’s Office.

The DA’s Office did not respond to a request for comment on the circumstances surrounding the crash, and the case remains under investigation.

Rose was an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at MIT who joined the university’s faculty in January, MIT President Sally A. Kornbluth wrote in an email to affiliates. She added that Rose, who was born and raised in Berlin, Germany, is remembered by his colleagues for his “boundless enthusiasm” and kindness.

“They remember him as always smiling, as working side by side with his students in the lab, as arriving early and staying late, inspired by the opportunities ahead for his research and for the field itself,” Kornbluth wrote in the email.

The news of Rose’s death surprised both bike safety advocates and MIT affiliates. Alexa F. Gomberg, a member of the MIT Graduate Student Council, said many MIT affiliates had not known about the crash until Kornbluth’s email.

“It was both shocking and devastating and horribly painful,” she said.

Rose is the second MIT affiliate to die in a bike crash in Cambridge in the last two years. In 2024, 24-year-old Minh-Thi Nguyen, a graduate student at MIT, was fatally struck by a truck near Kendall Square. Nguyen’s family later filed a wrongful death suit against the driver and his employer seeking more than $30 million, accusing them of negligence and wrongful death.

Gomberg, a lifelong friend of Nguyen, described Rose’s death as reopening a wound on MIT’s campus left by Nguyen’s death.

“When a crash like this happens, it puts everyone on edge. It changes your entire week, your entire month. And for me, knowing what happened to my friend, it takes a really long time to adjust back to any sense of normalcy,” Gomberg said.

Rose’s death marks the first fatal bike collision in Cambridge since September 2024, when John H. Corcoran ’84 was hit by an SUV while biking on Memorial Drive near the Boston University DeWolfe Boathouse. The driver, 27-year-old Junming Zhu, pleaded not guilty to vehicular homicide and negligence charges last July, and his case remains pending.

His next hearing, set to review evidence before trial, is scheduled for Oct. 1 after being rescheduled several times since the last discovery hearing in March.

Three cyclists were killed in crashes in Cambridge that year — Corcoran, Nguyen, and 55-year-old Kim Staley, who was hit and killed by a box truck at the intersection of Mount Auburn Street and DeWolfe Street on June 7.

Cambridge Bicycle Safety, an advocacy group focused on improving bike infrastructure, has been circulating a petition to “Make Memorial Drive Safe, Green, and Accessible,” including improvements at the Massachusetts Avenue intersection, and wrote in a statement to The Crimson that the location of Rose’s fatal crash is known to be unsafe for cyclists.

“This intersection has long been documented as dangerous, and was identified in the most recent MassDOT analysis as one of the region’s top bicycle crash clusters, with 61 reported bicycle crashes,” the group wrote.

The group has also advocated for safety improvements near the Boston University Bridge, where Corcoran was killed. Cambridge Bicycle Safety and other advocates repeatedly called on the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to extend protected bike lanes through the intersection and add a right-turn signal to separate cyclists from cars turning onto Memorial Drive.

Separately, in 2021, MassDOT reduced the Harvard Bridge — which carries Massachusetts Avenue across the Charles River — from four vehicle lanes to two and widened its bike lanes. But the project stopped more than 100 feet short of Memorial Drive, leaving the intersection where Rose was struck largely untouched.

For Michael A. Rogove, who often cycles through the intersection on his commute to work, the news of Rose’s death came as a shock. He said he is cautious when passing through the intersection because of cars running red lights.

“This is a chaotic intersection for motor vehicles, and it has only felt that driver behavior has been growing more chaotic,” Rogove said.

—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at shawnb.18. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.

—Staff writer Claire A. Michal can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at ClaireMichal.154.