VIRGINIA TECH MASSACRE / VICTIMS: Lives cut short

A look at the people who were killed in the Virginia Tech massacre:

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."

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 Darmstadt University of Technology to improve their German.

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, 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, age unknown, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was a graduate student in civil engineering.

Ryan Clark

Clark, 22, was called "Stack" by his friends, many of whom he met as a resident assistant at Ambler Johnston Hall, where the first shootings took place.

Clark 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, age unknown, of Charlotte, N.C., was a freshman majoring in international studies and French.

Jocelyne Couture-Nowak

Couture-Nowak, age unknown, 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.

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 the Virginia Tech Web site.

His father, Flavio Perez, spoke of the death 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 Betty 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, 45, 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.

Engineering Professor Demetri Telionis said Granata was successful and kind.

"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," Telionis said. "He was a wonderful family man. We will all miss him dearly."

Matthew Gwaltney

Gwaltney, age unknown, of Chester, Va., was majoring in environmental engineering.

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 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, 27, of Bellefonte, Pa., was a Penn State University graduate who was attending grad school at Virginia Tech, according to Penn State's Office of Physical Plant, where his father works.

Rachael Hill

Hill, 18, was a graduate of Grove Avenue Christian School in Henrico County (Virginia) and was a freshman at Virginia Tech. Her father, Guy Hill of Glen Allen, said his daughter was studying biology at the university.

Emily Jane Hilscher

Hilscher, 19, 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 McCarthy, a family friend.

Hilscher of Woodville, Va., 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.

On Tuesday, the academy 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.

Henry Lee

Lee, age unknown, was a freshman, of Roanoke, Va., a computer engineering and French major, enjoyed racquetball, engineering and Frisbee. "I'm just your typical short Asian (Chinese) guy," he wrote.

Liviu Librescu

Librescu, 76, died trying to keep a gunman from shooting his students by barring the door to his classroom. He was an aeronautics engineer and teacher at Virginia Tech for 20 years.

G.V. Loganathan

Loganathan, 51, was born in the southern Indian city of Chennai and had been a civil and environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech since 1982.

Loganathan 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 Indian state of Tamil Nadu. "He has been a driving force for all of us, the guiding force."

Partahi Lumbantoruan

Lumbantoruan, 34, of Indonesia, was a civil engineering doctoral student, according to Kristiarto Legowo, a spokesman for the Indonesian foreign ministry.

Lauren McCain

McCain, 20, was originally from Oklahoma but most recently lived in the Hampton, Va., area. She was planning to major in international studies.

Daniel O'Neil

O'Neil, 22, was a graduate student in engineering and played guitar and wrote his own songs, which he posted on a Web site, 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."

Erin Peterson

Peterson, age unknown, was a member of Phi Sigma Pi -- Alpha Rho chapter.

Michael Pohle

Pohle, 23, of Raritan, N.J., was a senior majoring in biology.

Julia Pryde

Pryde, age unknown, a graduate student from Middletown, N.J., was known for being an exceptional student as well as for her sweet demeanor.

Mary Karen Read

Read, 19, 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 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.

Reema Samaha

Samaha, 18, was a freshman, of Centreville, Va., liked dancing and was a fan of ballet and belly dancing, as well as a member of the school's Contemporary Dance Emsemble.

Leslie Sherman

Sherman, age unknown, was a sophomore, a history and international studies major.

Maxine Turner

Turner, age unknown, was a senior from Vienna, Va., was a chemical engineering major. A member of Alpha Omega Epsilon, her interests included tae kwon do, Shakespeare and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Nicole White

White, 20, was an international studies major from Hampton Roads, Va.

This list of victims includes 30 names, with photographs where available. The identities of the remaining two victims were unavailable at press time.

The information we have came from several sources, including the Associated Press, CBS News, ABC.com and Virginia Tech Collegiate Times.