Toxic Academia | Part 12: Semester 9 — the most traumatic part of my PhD
Fall 2022 — it’s the first day of school for the semester. Everyone is back working in person, and we have new students, so it’s a busy day chatting with everyone and meeting new people. This post will probably not make a ton of sense without reading my previous posts, but to orient you:
My main project was found to have mislabeled samples — suspected to be either intentionally mislabeled or at the very least been mislabeled at the hands of extreme incompetence — so this, plus 2 other projects in my PhD I’ve spent two years on are no more. My main project was directly connected to another project a post-doc named Mike recently finished, and his manuscript was already accepted by a huge journal (think of the three biggest journals in life sciences — yep one of those), and with the sample mislabeling he “cleaned up” the data and wrote to the journal editors to “mitigate the issues”. And during this time, my lab mate Elizabeth whom I was supposed to be working with turned out to not work well with others — and I found out later, is a dishonest person.
The stab in the back
I did not see Elizabeth all summer, but she’s also back today. My feelings toward her are a bit complicated — I recently learned that she cheated in class (read more here) and we’ve had a complicated working relationship (read more here and here) but we previously overcame our differences so I’m happy to move on and at the very least, have a friendly working relationship. I see her in passing and I say a friendly “Hi” — she looks at me as if she’s seen a ghost, like I’ve spooked her. Huh.
Later that afternoon, my PI comes into our lab office and very quickly walks through the room to my desk. He says to me “Mike’s paper is published” and before anything else can be said he practically runs away. Ok is it just me or is everyone acting a little weird to me today? It’s the first day of school, my PI is usually really social and chatty, not flighty…
I pull up Mike’s paper, it’s easy to find. I’m starting to feel a sick feeling in my stomach — Elizabeth and my PI are both acting weird, this paper which I know is flawed in big ways is published in a huge journal with names on it that I’ve worked with hold on a second — including Elizabeth and my PI’s names. What the fuck.
Writing this out, and remembering this moment. It gives me the same feelings I’ve felt when I got news that my friend passed away. Grief. Anger. I want to cry, I want to SCREAM, but I can’t — I’m in the lab. One of my labmates connects the dots at my silence and suggests she and I go have a coffee. Friend, if you are reading this — thank you for being there for me in that moment.
I think this moment is more upsetting than the actual upending of my projects I spent years on, that set me back in my PhD. I feel absolutely betrayed by my PI. How could he agree to put his name on this paper? Elizabeth, I’m not surprised. I’ve learned that she will do anything to get to the top. This is a paper in a major journal, it was too good of an opportunity for her to pass up. But my PI? I thought he was above this. He helped me start work with a new lab, he mentored me to make the right choice even when it’s hard or unpopular. How could he?
After the initial shock, I looked at the reviewer correspondance (this is public) and I’m seeing lies. Mike lied about recruiting new samples to mitigate issues — none of the samples in the paper were new. The data availability statement says that all data is available — it’s not. So not only is this paper fraudulent, not only did my PI’s greediness not oppose Elizabeth’s name being an author on a risky paper, nor did he oppose putting his own name on this paper (again, I’m convinced due to greed), but the data is not even published. How does a huge journal like this allow for a data availability statement to say the data is available when it is not? This lack of accountability from Mike, Mike’s lab, my PI, even the journal, is why we have people that don’t believe in science. I said what I said.
Now I know why Elizabeth got so jumpy when I said hi to her. She was waiting for me to find out and she’s afraid of — what? Me? I’ve never done anything to her, she’s done this all to herself.
I don’t see my PI hardly at all the next few days, he’s avoiding me.
The tension builds
The one project that didn’t get messed up from working with Mike’s lab — Project Alpha, which I worked on with Rob — is in the final manuscript draft. I get the draft from Eileen, the senior author on Mike’s fraudulent paper. I feel icky that I’m publishing a paper with them now, but I know the samples are not messed up and I am proud of the good and honest work that went into this analysis.
Eileen sends me her updated edits, and I notice a new reference. Yep, she added Mike’s newly published fucked up paper as a reference to a paper I’m first author on. A reference for a paper where I declined authorship. This is just too much.
I speak with Rob, he is co-first author with me on Project Alpha. He also happens to be the second author on Mike’s paper. Thankfully, Rob has been someone that is easy to talk to transparently and productively, so I speak with him on the phone and explain that I saw Eileen added the reference, and being that it is a paper I declined authorship on, I don’t feel comfortable citing it, so I would like to open a discussion about it. I cry on the phone. Rob is respectful and hears me out, he makes it simple “You’re co-first author, if you don’t want to cite the paper, we won’t cite it.” Rob, thank you for not making my life more difficult. He speaks with Mike, he tells me Mike understands. Rob also tells me that he understands the issues with Mike’s paper. For Rob, since he’s an M.D., getting a high impact paper retracted won’t affect his career the same way it would affect Mike, a post-doc, so for him, the stakes weren’t as high. Let me just say this — this conversation I had with Rob, confirmed my suspicions that the data didn’t get “fixed” like Mike told everyone it did.
After this conversation, I email my PI on the Friday at the end of the week. I explain that Eileen added THE paper as a reference, and I’m informing him that I plan to talk to her about it. I don’t feel comfortable citing a paper I don’t support, period. His response is that no, I will not talk to her about it, it will make things worse.
So am I just supposed to take this? I’m supposed to know that a paper in a high impact journal is fraudulent, and not say anything? I’m supposed to be okay with citing that paper in my own work?
I feel at a complete loss. If I go against my PI, that puts me in a vulnerable position — he has kicked people out of the lab for less.
The next week
I decide to speak with the director of my program, a PI I have a good relationship with. I don’t name names, but I explain what happened, with the project, with the fraudulent paper being published, and the fact that my PI is forcing me to bend over and allow it to be cited in my own work. How do I navigate this situation? He helps me type up an email to my PI, helping me to choose language that avoids being inflammatory, like “having lingering concerns over the quality control”. At the end of this meeting, he asks which journal this fraudulent paper was published in — I tell him, his eyes all but pop out of his head. He says “Wow, I did not expect that. The plot thickens…” very validating, I must say.
I send the carefully drafted email to my PI. He comes to my desk to get me and takes me to his office to talk. I can tell he’s uncomfortable and tense. The conversation was very disheartening. During this conversation with my PI, he says “I know you think this paper should never have been published” and I snap back with “You’re right, it should not have been published, I looked at how messed up the samples are and Mike didn’t fix it like he said!”
He refused to allow me to have a discussion with Eileen about citing the paper. Refused. I know if I go against him, he will escalate things and it will put my PhD on the line. I have no choice and I feel sick about it to this day. I feel sick citing it knowing the truth, imagine how Elizabeth and my PI feel, greedily putting their names on this paper in order to get clout for being in a high impact journal. It feels like a secret society or some sort of weird pact that the people who added their names on this paper swore to protect it and never speak of the truth of it, in exchange for having their name in this journal. The funny thing is — Elizabeth’s jumpiness, my PI’s defensiveness and avoiding me all week, and Rob’s conversation about how he’s already thought about what would happen to him if the paper got retracted — they all feel guilty about it.
Reflection
Truly, I think this has been the most traumatizing part of my PhD. The dissolution of the projects was chaotic and upsetting, but at the end of the day, I was able to mostly cut ties with those involved and start fresh. My PI chose to have his name on this fraudulent paper, and that decision said a lot about his loyalty. I feel betrayed. My PI should mentor me to make ethical choices. The trauma from this situation has come from grieving the man I thought he was. It still makes me cry.
I can’t help but feel that Elizabeth had something to do with this. She is now his primary pet sitter (remember the weird comments she made about being jealous I pet sit for my PI?), she gets away with not following lab expectations that he puts on everyone else, and she gets away with cheating in class. I’m not sure how she is able to manipulate my PI, but she does, and I can only speculate that she somehow convinced him to put his name on this paper because she wanted to put her name on a paper in a high impact journal. There have been several other situations around her since then which are odd, weird, and unfair, maybe I’ll post about them later.
It’s been a year since the Fall 2022 semester, and things with my PI and I have never been the same. I feel like I walk on eggshells around him now. I’ve said less than 5 words to Elizabeth since then. Maybe it’s unprofessional, maybe it’s justified, but I have nothing to say to her and no desire to be around her. I don’t forgive her for all of the crap I endured from her and I don’t think I ever will. Especially not now. I’ve seen her true colors, and they’re ugly.
Now you know why I’m posting this with an alias. I wrote this story because I feel like I am not able to talk about it at school with anyone in an authoritative position without putting me in a vulnerable position. Accusing the people in my story for the things they have done is very serious. How do I navigate this? Should I be the whistle blower, and write to the journal editors? Should I move on? Honestly, I would appreciate anyone’s feedback.
That’s all for now. Maybe I’ll post a little more later as follow up, but this has been my story.
Thanks for reading.
XX Rosie Frank
