(Abdul–Rahman Oladimeji Bello, Headline USA) Harvard Business School recently placed one of its esteemed, award-winning ethics professor in the behavioral science community on leave following suspicions of fraudulent data usage.
Professor Francesca Gino, who studies honesty, allegedly fabricated data in at least four different research papers over the last decade, The College Fix reported.
The fraud allegations initially arose after a reputable academic journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, retracted a paper co-authored by Gino for falsified results.
The string of alleged bogus research was exposed by a trio of other professors who detailed their findings on their blog, Data Colada, in a series of articles they dubbed “Clusterfake.”
“In 2021, we and a team of anonymous researchers examined a number of studies co-authored by Gino because we had concerns that they contained fraudulent data. We discovered evidence of fraud in papers spanning over a decade, including papers published quite recently in 2020,” they wrote.
“Specifically, we wrote a report about four studies for which we had accumulated the strongest evidence of fraud. We believe that many more Gino-authored papers contain fake data. Perhaps dozens.”
The three Data Colada professors’ publications note that none of Gino’s co-authors were complicit in any fraud, as they did not assist with the data collection for the papers in question.
Gino, who is now on administrative leave according to her HBS profile, took to LinkedIn to note her awareness of the claims, reported the National Post. However, she neither admitted nor denied any wrongdoing.
She wrote on Linkedin, “As I continue to evaluate these allegations and assess my options, I am limited into what I can say publicly. I want to assure you that I take them seriously, and they will be addressed.”
Speaking to the New York Times, a person identified as her husband also said, “It’s obviously something that is very sensitive that we can’t speak to now.”
