Setti Warren, the director of Harvard’s Institute of Politics and a former mayor of Newton, died suddenly over the weekend. He was 55.

Harvard Kennedy School Dean Jeremy M. Weinstein and Harvard College Dean David Deming announced Warren’s death in an email message on Sunday , a copy of which is posted to the school’s website. It was not immediately clear how or when Warren died.

“Setti was a beloved member of our community, and we are devastated by this heartbreaking news,” Weinstein and Deming said in the statement.

Warren became the first popularly elected African American mayor in Massachusetts when he won the mayoralty in Newton in 2009. An Iraq war veteran, he later ran for U.S. Senate and governor of Massachusetts.

“It’s often said that the measure of a person’s life is found

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