Kevin Patrick Granata, 45, was teaching on the third floor of Norris Hall at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University on the morning of April 16, 2007, when gunfire was heard from the floor below. A nearby professor warned him, and Granata locked his office door with about 20 students inside. After securing the students, he and colleague Wally Grant went downstairs to investigate. They were met by the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, who shot both professors. Grant survived with injuries; Granata was struck in the temple and killed.

None of the students sheltered in Granata’s office were physically harmed. Cho had begun his attack earlier that day in a dormitory, then carried out a mass shooting in Norris Hall that killed 32 students and faculty and wounded many others; Cho died by a self-inflicted wound as police breached the building. Granata was remembered as a leading biomechanics researcher and a devoted family man.

If anyone knew Kevin Granata or was in Norris Hall that morning and has details to share, please post what you remember.