America's Yale University says it has lost a "shining star" after a student was killed in a horrific chemistry lab accident a month before she was due to graduate.

Classmates called police after they found the body of Michele Dufault, 22, early on Wednesday morning after she got her long hair caught in a spinning lathe in the university's Sterling Chemistry Laboratory.

Hundreds of classmates lit candles in a vigil held for the astronomy and physics major, who was remembered as a bright, kind student and a role model for young women in science.

"Yale has lost a shining star," Yale College Dean Mary Miller said in a statement reported by Yale Daily News.

"The universe has lost a rising one."

Ms Dufault, from Scituate Massachusetts, was an active member of the university community, playing saxophone in the Yale marching band and as a member of the Yale Drop team, which carry out gravity experiments at NASA.

Ms Dufault was writing a thesis about dark matter and was going to continue studies in oceanography or physics after taking a year off to travel.

She was due to graduate in a month, her grandfather Robert Dufault said.

"She was a living saint," Mr Dufault told msnbc.com.

"She was a good, smart girl."

Her uncle Frederick Dufault called her brilliant.

"She's a wonderful, wonderful kid and that should be celebrated. There's nothing but good things to say about her," he said.

One of Ms Dufault's friends, Merlyn Deng, said she was passionate about getting other young women involved in sciences.

"There was no other person I know who not only said, 'I can do anything I want to do,' but also 'I want to bring other women with me,'" Ms Deng told the Yale newspaper.

At the vigil on Wednesday night, the marching band played their theme song What Is Love and one of Ms Dufault's favourite songs Smells Like Teen Spirit.

The university and government officials will undertake separate investigations into the accident to see whether the laboratory was operating safely.

Hundreds of people have taken to a Facebook memorial page to leave tributes, and friends and family will farewell her at a funeral in her hometown on Saturday.

smh.com.au