Brown University President Christina Paxson said Neves Valente was enrolled at the Ivy League school from the autumn of 2000 to the following spring, and was studying for a PhD in physics.
He had “no current active affiliation” to Brown, she said.
Officials said they believe Neves Valente shot and killed MIT professor Nuno F Gomes Loureiro, 47, on Monday at his home in Brookline, which is about 50 miles (80km) from Providence.
Both men had studied at the same university in Portugal in the late 1990s, police said.
Officials said the cases were linked when the suspect’s vehicle was identified via CCTV footage and a witness at Brown University.
The same car was spotted near the scene of the professor’s shooting, which happened just two days later.
Authorities have not provided any suspected motive for either of the attacks.
Two students were killed and nine others were injured as a gunman burst into Brown University’s engineering building on 13 December and opened fire during final exams.
They have been identified as Ella Cook, 19, a second-year student from Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, an Uzbek-American who had just started at the university.