An Eagan native who was a runner-up on “Survivor” says she left the building mere moments before a shooter dressed in black killed at least two people and wounded nine others at Brown University on Saturday during final exams on the Ivy League campus.
Eva Erickson, an engineering and thermal science student, said she left her lab in the same building minutes before shots rang out.
“I am so so extremely lucky that I was very unproductive at work today,” she posted in an Instagram story while she was locked down in a gym while authorities looked for the shooter.
Around 4 p.m. Erickson said she thought, “Man, I’m just not getting anything done … and randomly decided I would go to the gym. I never go to the gym in the afternoon. … I was leaving the building within five minutes of the shooter coming in.”
In another post on her Instagram account, Erickson told people she was safe.
“I am safe!!” Erickson wrote. “Yes, my office at Brown is in the building of the shooting but I was very lucky I left my lab 15 minutes prior to the active shooter alert to go to the gym. I’m currently locked in the school gym sheltering in place until the shooter is (apprehended). The only other member of my lab working in the lab today has safely been evacuated.”
A person of interest in connection with the shooting was in custody Sunday.
The doctoral candidate was a runner up on the CBS TV reality show, “Survivor 48,” which debuted in February of 2025. Erickson was the show’s first openly autistic contestant and shared candid moments with viewers.
In an interview with the Pioneer Press, she said, “I didn’t go onto ‘Survivor’ to try to create this platform to speak about autism. It’s just part of my life. …The world has a lot of misconceptions about autism right now, and it is so important for people like me to share my story so that we can clear those up and help open this conversation and recognize that autism is not something wrong with you, but it is something that is special and unique, and it makes you who you are. It might give you challenges that are different than other people, but it also gives you strength.”
Eagan native Eva Erickson talks about competing on ‘Survivor,’ revealing autism
Erickson graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2022 and was the first and only female player on the school’s hockey team. She’s currently pursuing a PhD at Brown University School of Engineering, where she’s captain of the men’s club hockey team.
The attack Saturday afternoon set off hours of chaos across the Ivy League campus and surrounding Providence neighborhoods as hundreds of officers searched for the shooter and urged students and staff to shelter in place. The lockdown, which stretched into the night, was lifted early Sunday, but authorities had not yet released information about a potential motive.
Col. Oscar Perez, the Providence police chief, said Sunday afternoon that the person in custody was in their 20s and that no one has been charged yet. Perez, who earlier had said the person was in their 30s and that no one else was being sought, declined to say whether the detained person had any connection to Brown.
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