Durham, N.C. — Duke University officials announced on Saturday the creation of a fellowship in memory of slain student Abhijit Mahato.

The Abhijit Mahato Memorial Fellowship will provide financial support to a Duke international graduate student who is studying engineering. Preference will be given to a student from India, Mahato’s native country.

Mahato, originally from Tatanagar, India, was found shot to death on Jan. 18 in his off-campus apartment.

The 29-year-old second-year graduate student had been studying for an engineering doctorate degree focused on computational mechanics.

Laurence Alvin Lovette Jr., 17, and Stephen Oates, 19, have since been charged in connection with his murder.

Lovette surrendered to police on March 13.

At the time of his arrest, he was wanted on a first-degree murder charge in the March 5 shooting death of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Student Body President Eve Carson.

A few hours after Lovette was detained, police charged him with murder in Mahato's death.

In a March 24 search warrant for DNA and photographs of Lovette, police said that a search of the crime scene yielded several DNA samples "presumably left on the scene by subjects other than the victim."

Another man, Stephen Oates, 19, of Anthony Drive, is also charged in Mahato's death.

Lovette is in jail under a $3 million bond in Mahato's death; he is in jail without bond in Carson's death.