BOSTON, May 20 (UPI) -- Boston police said they have identified the driver of a truck that struck and killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher from Japan.
Police said Kanako Miura, 36, who had been working at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory since last fall, was hit about 3:30 p.m. Sunday, the Boston Herald reported. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
"Our hearts go out to her friends and colleagues at MIT, and especially the Miura family, who must absorb this terrible loss from so far away," MIT President L. Rafael Reif said in an email sent to students and faculty Sunday.
The driver, who had not been identified or charged with a crime, was cooperating with the investigation, The Boston Globe reported. Witnesses told the Globe the vehicle that struck Miura was roughly the size of a garbage truck and it was possible the driver didn't realize he'd hit the woman as she rode through busy Kenmore Square.
The accident occurred four days after Boston Mayor Thomas Menino pledged to improve on a rash of bicycle and pedestrian injuries at the hands of unaware drivers.
