Shaalan Waleed with his wife, in a wedding photo.
A doctoral student in civil engineering, Shaalan was from Zagazig, Egypt. He left behind his wife and 1-year-old to come to the U.S. to study civil engineering, following in his father's footsteps, the New York Times reported.
Randy Dymond, a civil engineering professor at Virginia Tech, told the Times that Shaalan had saved the life of a fellow graduate student during the shooting; Cho noticed the student, who was playing dead beside a badly wounded Shaalan, but before Cho could shoot the student, Shaalan distracted him and was shot a second time.
—AP