Ross Abdallah Alameddine

Alameddine, 20, of Saugus, Mass., was a sophomore who had just declared English as his major.

Friends created a memorial page on Facebook.com that described Alameddine as "an intelligent, funny, easygoing guy."

"You're such an amazing kid, Ross," wrote Zach Allen, who along with Alameddine attended Austin Preparatory School in Reading, Mass. "You always made me smile, and you always knew the right thing to do or say to cheer anyone up."

Alameddine was killed in the classroom building, according to Robert Palumbo, a family friend who answered the phone Tuesday at the Alameddine residence.

Alameddine's mother, Lynnette Alameddine, said she was outraged by how victims' relatives were notified of the shooting.

"It happened in the morning and I did not hear (about her son's death) until a quarter to 11 at night," she said. "That was outrageous. Two kids died, and then they shoot a whole bunch of them, including my son."

———

Christopher James Bishop

Bishop, 35, taught German at Virginia Tech and helped oversee an exchange program with a German university.

Bishop decided which German-language students at Virginia Tech could attend the Darmstadt Technology University to improve their German.

"He would teach them German in Blacksburg, and he would decide which students were able to study" abroad, Darmstadt spokesman Lars Rosumek said.

The German school set up a book of condolences for students, staff and faculty to sign, along with information about the Virginia shootings.

"Of course many persons knew him personally and are deeply, deeply shocked about his death," Rosumek said.

Bishop earned bachelor's and master's degrees in German and was a Fulbright scholar at Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany.

According to his Web site, http://www.memory39.com/, Bishop spent four years living in Germany, where he "spent most of his time learning the language, teaching English, drinking large quantities of wheat beer, and wooing a certain fraulein."

The "fraulein" was Bishop's wife, Stephanie Hofer, who also teaches in Virginia Tech's German program.

———

Brian Bluhm

Bluhm, 25, was an avid fan of the Detroit Tigers, who announced his death before Tuesday's game against Kansas City.

"He went to a game last weekend and saw them win, and I'm glad he did," said Bluhm's close friend, Michael Marshall of Richmond, Va.

The master's student in water resources received his undergraduate degree in civil engineering at Virginia Tech and was getting ready to defend his thesis. He already had accepted a job in Baltimore, Marshall said.

Bluhm moved from Iowa to Detroit to Louisville, Ky., before coming to Virginia. His parents moved to Winchester while he was in school, so Blacksburg became his real home, Marshall said.

Bluhm also loved Virginia Tech's Hokies football team, and a close group of friends often traveled to away games. But Marshall said it was his faith and work with the Baptist Collegiate Ministries that his friend loved most.

"Brian was a Christian, and first and foremost that's what he would want to be remembered as," he said.

———

Ryan Clark

Clark was called "Stack" by his friends, many of whom he met as a resident assistant at Ambler Johnson Hall, where the first shootings took place.

Clark, 22, was from Martinez, Ga., just outside Augusta. He was a fifth-year student working toward degrees in biology and English, and a member of the Marching Virginians band.

"He was just one of the greatest people you could possibly know," friend Gregory Walton, 25, said after learning from an ambulance driver that Clark was among the dead.

"He was always smiling, always laughing. I don't think I ever saw him mad in the five years I knew him."

———

Austin Cloyd

Cloyd, an international studies major from Blacksburg, Va., was so inspired by an Appalachian service project that helped rehabilitate homes that she and her mother started a similar program in their Illinois town, her former pastor said.

The Cloyds were active members of the First United Methodist Church in Champaign, Ill., before moving to Blacksburg in 2005, the Rev. Terry Harter said. The family moved when Cloyd's father, C. Bryan Cloyd, took a job in the accounting department at Virginia Tech, Harter said.

Harter, whose church held a prayer service for the family Tuesday night, described Cloyd as a "very delightful, intelligent, warm young lady" and an athlete who played basketball and volleyball in high school. But it was the mission trips to Appalachia that showed just how caring and faithful she was, he said.

"It made an important impact on her life, that's the kind of person she was," he said.

———

Jocelyne Couture-Nowak

Couture-Nowak, a French instructor at Virginia Tech, was instrumental in the creation of the first French school in a town in Nova Scotia.

She lived there in the 1990s with her husband, Jerzy Nowak, the head of the horticulture department at Virginia Tech.

Richard Landry, a spokesman with the francophone school board in Truro, Nova Scotia, said Couture-Nowak was one of three mothers who pushed for the founding of the Ecole acadienne de Truro in 1997.

"It was very important for her daughters to be taught in French," said Rejean Sirois, who worked with her in establishing the school.

A student who identified herself as DeAnne Leigh Pelchat described her gratitude to Couture-Nowak on a Web site.

"I will forever remember you and what you have done for me and the others that benefit from what you did in the little town of Truro," Pelchat wrote in French. "You'll always have a place in my heart."

———

Daniel Perez Cueva

Perez Cueva, 21, from Peru, was killed while in a French class, said his mother, Betty Cueva, who was reached by telephone at the youth's listed telephone number.

Perez Cueva was a student of international relations, according to Virginia Tech's Web site.

His father, Flavio Perez, spoke of the death earlier to RPP radio in Peru. He lives in Peru and said he was trying to obtain a humanitarian visa from the U.S. consulate. He is separated from Cueva, who said she had lived in the United States for six years.

A spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Lima said the student's father "will receive all the attention possible when he applies" for the visa.

———

Kevin Granata

Granata, a professor of engineering science and mechanics, served in the military and later conducted orthopedic research in hospitals before coming to Virginia Tech, where he and his students researched muscle and reflex response and robotics.

The head of the school's engineering science and mechanics department called Granata one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the country working on movement dynamics in cerebral palsy.

"With so many research projects and graduate students, he still found time to spend with his family, and he coached his children in many sports and extracurricular activities," said engineering professor Demetri P. Telionis. "He was a wonderful family man. We will all miss him dearly."

Granata was known worldwide for his research into how muscles accomplish complicated movements, said Stefan Duma, another engineering professor.

"He liked to ask the big questions," Duma said. "When we had students defending their Ph.D., and he kept asking 'Did we have the total solution?' He was really interested in whether we answered the big questions. That's really a sign of a great scientist."

———

Caitlin Hammaren

Hammaren, 19, of Westtown, N.Y., was a sophomore majoring in international studies and French, according to officials at her former school district.

"She was just one of the most outstanding young individuals that I've had the privilege of working with in my 31 years as an educator," said John P. Latini, principal of Minisink Valley High School, where she graduated in 2005. "Caitlin was a leader among our students."

Minisink Valley students and teachers shared their grief Tuesday at a counseling center set up in the school, Latini said.

———

Jeremy Herbstritt

Herbstritt loved to chat, so much so that high school classmates voted him "Most Talkative."

"Talkie, talkie, talkie, everybody likes to talk," read the description in the Bellefonte High School yearbook of the 1998 graduate. Below was a picture of Herbstritt, with a sly grin, talking on a pay phone.

Herbstritt, 27, had two undergraduate degrees from Penn State, one in biochemistry and molecular biology from 2003, and another in civil engineering from 2006.

He grew up on a small farm just outside the central Pennsylvania borough of Bellefonte, where his father, Michael, raised cattle and sheep.

His career goal was to be a civil engineer, and he talked of getting into environmental work after school.

"He liked to work on machinery, take a lot of stuff apart and fixed it," said his grandfather Thomas Herbstritt, 77, of St. Marys. "He was a studious kid."

———

Rachael Hill

Hill was a freshman studying biology at Virginia Tech after graduating from Grove Avenue Christian School in Henrico County.

Hill, an only child, was popular and funny, had a penchant for shoes and was competitive on the volleyball court.

"Rachael was a very bright, articulate, intelligent, beautiful, confident, poised young woman. She had a tremendous future in front of her," said Clay Fogler, administrator for the Grove Avenue school. "Obviously, the Lord had other plans for her."

Her father, Guy Hill, said the family was too distraught to talk about Hill on Tuesday, but relatives were planning to have memorial events later in the week. "We just need some time here," he said tearfully.

———

Emily Jane Hilscher

Hilscher, a freshman majoring in animal and poultry sciences, was known around her hometown as an animal lover.

"She worked at a veterinarian's office and cared about them her whole life," said Rappahannock County Administrator John W. McCarthy, a family friend.

Hilscher, 19, of Woodville, was a freshman who lived on the same dorm floor as victim Ryan Clark, McCarthy said.

A friend, Will Nachless, also 19, said Hilscher "was always very friendly. Before I even knew her, I thought she was very outgoing, friendly and helpful, and she was great in chemistry."

———

Jarrett Lee Lane

Lane, 22, was a senior civil engineering student who was valedictorian of his high school class in tiny Narrows, Va., just 30 miles from Virginia Tech.

His high school put up a memorial to Lane that included pictures, musical instruments and his athletic jerseys.

Lane played the trombone, ran track and played football and basketball at Narrows High School. "We're just kind of binding together as a family," Principal Robert Stump said.

Lane's brother-in-law Daniel Farrell called Lane fun-loving and "full of spirit."

"He had a caring heart and was a friend to everyone he met," Farrell said. "We are leaning on God's grace in these trying hours."

———

Matthew J. La Porte

La Porte, 20, a freshman from Dumont, N.J., was attending Virginia Tech on an Air Force ROTC scholarship and belonged to the school's Corps of Cadets.

La Porte, who was considering majoring in political science, was a graduate of the Carson Long Military Institute in New Bloomfield, Pa. He credited the academy with turning his life around.

"I know that Carson Long was my second chance," he said during a 2005 graduation speech that was printed in the school yearbook.

On Tuesday, the school posted a memorial photograph of La Porte in his school uniform on its Web site.

"Matthew was an exemplary student at Carson Long whose love of music and fellow cadets were an inspiration to all on campus," the school said in a statement.

According to his profile on a music Web site, La Porte's favorite artists were Meshuggah, Metallica, Soundgarden, Creed and Live.

----- Liviu Librescu

Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer, was known for his research, but his son said the Holocaust survivor will be remembered as a hero for protecting students as the gunman tried to enter his classroom.

Librescu taught at Virginia Tech for 20 years and had an international reputation for his work in aeronautical engineering.

"His research has enabled better aircraft, superior composite materials, and more robust aerospace structures," said Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.

After surviving the Nazi killings, Librescu escaped from Communist Romania and made his way to the United States. Monday's killings coincided with Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Librescu's son, Joe, said his father's students sent e-mails detailing how the professor saved their lives by closing the doorway of his classroom against the approaching gunman.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."

———

G.V. Loganathan

Loganathan was born in the southern India city of Chennai and had been a civil and environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech since 1982.

Loganathan, 51, won several awards for excellence in teaching, had served on the faculty senate and was an adviser to about 75 undergraduate students.

"We all feel like we have had an electric shock. We do not know what to do," his brother G.V. Palanivel told the NDTV news channel from the southern India state of Tamil Nadu. "He has been a driving force for all of us, the guiding force."

———

Partahi Lumbantoruan

Lumbantoruan's family in Indonesia said they sold off property and cars to pay his tuition and that his goal was to become a teacher in the United States.

Lumbantoruan, a 34-year-old doctoral student, had been studying civil engineering at Virginia Tech for three years, said his father, Tohom Lumbantoruan, a 66-year-old retired army officer.

"We tried everything to completely finance his studies in the United States," he said. "We only wanted him to succeed in his studies, but ... he met a tragic fate."

His stepmother, Sugiyarti, said he had called almost daily to talk to the family. In their last conversation he had asked for the latest news on Indonesian politics.

"Why can people bring guns to campus?" she asked, weeping. "How is it possible that so many innocent people could be killed? How could it happen?" Like many Indonesians she goes by one name.

An aunt, 53-year-old Christina Panjaitan, said her nephew was hardworking, intelligent and never complained. "He told me he wanted to teach in America," she said.

Family members were planning a public burial in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

———

Lauren McCain

On her MySpace page, McCain listed "the love of my life" as Jesus Christ.

Her family said the 20-year-old international studies major became a Christian some time ago.

"Her life since that time has been filled with His love that continued to overflow to touch everyone who knew her," the family said in a statement.

Her uncle, Jeff Elliott, told The Oklahoman newspaper that she was an avid reader, was learning German and had almost mastered Latin. She was home-schooled, he said, and had worked at a department store for about a year to save money for college.

She spent several years of her childhood in Oklahoma but her father's Navy career also took the family to Florida, Texas and then to Virginia.

———

Daniel O'Neil

O'Neil, a 22-year-old graduate student in engineering, played guitar and wrote songs he posted on a Web site, http://www.residenthippy.com/.

Friend Steve Craveiro described him as smart, responsible and a hard worker, someone who never got into trouble.

"He would come home from school over the summer and talk about projects, about building bridges and stuff like that," Craveiro said. "He loved his family. He was pretty much destined to be extremely successful. He just didn't deserve to have happen what happened."

O'Neil graduated in 2002 from Lincoln High School in Rhode Island and graduated from Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., before heading to Virginia Tech, where he was also a teaching assistant, Craveiro said.

———

Juan Ramon Ortiz

Ortiz, 26, who was from Puerto Rico, was teaching a class as part of his graduate program in civil engineering at Virginia Tech.

The family's neighbors in the San Juan suburb of Bayamon remembered Ortiz as a quiet, dedicated son who decorated his parents' one-story concrete house each Christmas and played in a salsa band with his father on weekends.

"He was an extraordinary son, what any father would have wanted," said Ortiz's father, also named Juan Ramon Ortiz.

Marilys Alvarez, 22, heard Ortiz's mother scream from the house next door when she learned of her son's death. Alvarez said she had wanted to study in the United States, but was now reconsidering.

"Here the violence is bad, but you don't see that," she said. "It's really sad. You can't go anywhere now."

———

Minal Panchal

Panchal, 26, wanted to be an architect like her father, who died four years ago.

She was very keen to go to the United States for postgraduate studies and thrilled when she gained admission last year, said Chetna Parekh, a friend who lives in the bustling middle-class Mumbai neighborhood of Borivali, India, where Panchal lived before coming to Virginia Tech. "She was a brilliant student and very hardworking. She was focussed on getting her degree and doing well."

Panchal was worried about her mother, Hansa, living alone and wanted her to come to the U.S., neighbor Jayshree Ajmane said. Hansa left earlier this month for New Jersey, where her sister and brother-in-law live.

Ajmane called Panchal a bright, polite girl who would help the neighborhood children with their schoolwork.

———

Michael Pohle

Pohle, 23, of Flemington, N.J., was expected to graduate in a few weeks with a degree in biological sciences, said Craig Blanton, Hunterdon Central's vice principal during the 2002 school year, when Pohle graduated.

"He had a bunch of job interviews and was all set to start his post-college life," Blanton told The Star-Ledger of Newark.

At the high school, Pohle played on the football and lacrosse teams.

One of his old lacrosse coaches, Bob Shroeder, described him as "a good kid who did everything that good kids do."

"He tried to please," Shroeder told the newspaper. "He was just a great kid."

———

Julia Pryde

Pryde, a graduate student from Middletown, N.J., was an "exceptional student academically and personally," said Saied Mostaghimi, chairman of the biological systems and engineering department where Pryde was seeking her master's degree.

"She was the nicest person you ever met," Mostaghimi told The Star-Ledger of Newark.

Last summer, Pryde had traveled to Ecuador to research water quality issues with a professor. She planned to return this summer for follow-up work, Mostaghimi said.

A 2001 graduate of Middletown North High School, Pryde was on the school's swim team and played softball in two town leagues.

Her hometown has been touched by tragedy before, losing 37 current and former residents in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"The town pulls together in these situations. Everything that we can do for this family, we'll see what can be done," Middletown Mayor Gerard P. Scharfenberger said.

———

Mary Karen Read

Read was born in South Korea into an Air Force family and lived in Texas and California before settling in the northern Virginia suburb of Annandale.

Read, 19, considered a handful of colleges, including nearby George Mason University, before choosing Virginia Tech. It was a popular destination among her Annandale High School classmates, according to her aunt Karen Kuppinger.

She had yet to declare a major.

"I think she wanted to try to spread her wings," said Kuppinger, of Rochester, N.Y.

Kuppinger said her niece had struggled adjusting to Tech's sprawling 2,600-acre campus. But she had recently begun making friends and looking into a sorority.

Kuppinger said the family started calling Read as news reports surfaced.

"After three or four hours passed and she hadn't picked up her cell phone or answered her e-mail ... we did get concerned," Kuppinger said. "We honestly thought she would pop up."

———

Reema Samaha

Samaha was a dancer, whether it was the classical ballet she studied as a child, the belly dance moves she used for a high school talent show last year or just spinning around the living room with her mother at their home in a Washington suburb.

"She just danced, and laughed and smiled," said Linda D'Orazio, a neighbor.

Both she and her killer, 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui, graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va. — Samaha in 2006 and Cho in 2003. But Samaha's neighbors and friends said they didn't think she knew Cho.

Samaha, 18, was a member of the high school's dance team. She had recently taken up belly dancing, a nod to her family's roots in Lebanon, which the Samahas visited each summer, friends said.

Watching her on stage was captivating, they said.

"She was just beautiful and when you watched her, I thought she was one of the most gorgeous girls in the world inside and out," said Lauren Walters, a Westfield graduate who is now enrolled at Clemson University.

———

Maxine Turner

Turner, a senior chemical engineering student, had finished her required credits and was preparing for her May graduation, but took German as an elective, said her father, Paul Turner. The 22-year-old was shot in the German class.

"She was very excited — she was very excited about school in general," her father said.

Turner, from Vienna, Va., was accepted by a handful of high profile schools, including Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. But she was determined to be a Virginia Tech Hokie, her father said.

"We tried to convince her to go elsewhere. When you get accepted to Johns Hopkins, it's a very prestigious school," he said. "But no, she wanted to go to Virginia Tech."

Turner recently helped found a chapter of Alpha Omega Epsilon, a sorority for women in engineering. She had accepted a chemical engineering job with W.L. Gore & Associates, in Elkton, Md.