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Bubble-fusion researcher loses professorship
Physics World (UK)

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Purdue University in the US has announced how it will reprimand Rusi Taleyarkhan after an internal committee ruled in July that he is guilty of scientific misconduct. The committee has also denied an appeal from Taleyarkhan about the misconduct verdict.

Taleyarkhan, a nuclear engineer who claimed the discovery of "bubble fusion" in 2002, will lose his title of Al Bement Jr Professor of Nuclear Engineering and will not be able to be thesis adviser to graduate students for at least three years.

Taleyarkhan retains his position as a member of the Purdue University graduate faculty, but with the reduced rank of "special graduate faculty".

In July the university concluded that he had cited a paper by researchers in his own lab as if it were an independent confirmation of his alleged discovery of bubble fusion.

Proportional punishment

"In considering the sanctions to impose, I have been guided by the principle that the sanctions should address and be proportional to the specific findings of the research misconduct," Purdue provost Randy Woodson wrote in a letter to Taleyarkhan that outlined the disciplinary actions.

Woodson added that the university will review Taleyarkhan's conduct after three years, to determine whether he can apply for reinstatement as a full faculty member.

Taleyarkhan believes that the decision is unreasonable. "The sanctions are unfair and egregious in their severity," he told physicsworld.com. He pointed out that a previous Purdue committee had exonerated him of misconduct charges in 2006, and that the latest committee absolved him of most charges of research misconduct.

Political motivation

The university started its latest investigation, involving "new allegations" of falsifying the research record, he said, "following political pressure from Congress motivated by articles in Nature." Overall, he continued, "the university system has failed miserably and taken the expedient way out."

What will happen next? Taleyarkhan, who has initiated a civil lawsuit against the university, does not entirely discount further legal action. "As a faculty member and a US citizen," he said, "I have a right to appeal the findings along with seeking redress from the courts of the United States for the extensive damage caused to me and several others."

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