The president of Stanford reportedly plans to resign effective on August 31 after he allegedly manipulated research data.
According to a report from the Stanford Daily, Marc Tessier-Lavigne will resign his post in just over a month. The report states he plans to “retract or issue lengthy corrections to five widely cited papers for which he was principal author after a Stanford-sponsored investigation.”
Here’s more from the Stanford Daily:
“At various times when concerns with Dr. Tessier-Lavigne’s papers emerged—in 2001, the early 2010s, 2015-2016, and March 2021—Dr. Tessier-Lavigne failed to decisively and forthrightly correct mistakes in the scientific record,” Stanford’s report said, identifying a number of apparent manipulations in Tessier-Lavigne’s neuroscientific research.
The report concluded that the fudging of results under Tessier-Lavigne’s purview “spanned labs at three separate institutions.” It identified a culture where Tessier-Lavigne “tended to reward the ‘winners’ (that is, postdocs who could generate favorable results) and marginalize or diminish the ‘losers’ (that is, postdocs who were unable or struggled to generate such data).”
While there was no evidence he himself manipulated the data, Tessier-Lavigne did not attempt to correct the mistakes – even when given the opportunity.
According to Jerry Yang, chair of the Stanford Board of Trustees, Tessier-Lavigne will step down “in light of the report and its impact on his ability to lead Stanford.”
A major university will be looking for a new leader very soon.