Nov 8 :
Ranjan Dias, a prominent professor at the University of Rochester who asserted the discovery of a room-temperature superconductor, has been recommended for dismissal by the president of the institution for research misconduct. The proposal was made by Rochester President Sarah Mangelsdorf in a letter sent to the chair and vice chair of the Rochester Board of Trustees in August. Reports of the letter have reached The Wall Street Journal.
It is my sincere desire that the Board of Trustees take the necessary steps to dissolve Dr. Ranga Dias's contract with the University, which would entail the prompt dismissal of his employment, as stated in her letter. Dias has stepped down from teaching and student supervision as of Monday, while he continues to have posts in the mechanical engineering and physics departments. A representative from the university in Rochester, New York, chose not to comment on the timing or likelihood of the board's response to Mangelsdorf's suggestion.
Despite frequent accusations of data manipulation and plagiarism from his peers, Dias's daring scientific claims regarding the discovery of new superconductors—rare materials that carry electrical current without loss of energy—drew media attention throughout the world.
According to a university probe that concluded in February, he falsified data in four separate research. One of these studies was a major publication in the magazine Nature in March 2023, which he later recanted, claiming to have found a room-temperature superconductor. Dias also committed plagiarism in a roughly $795,000 grant proposal he submitted to the National Science Foundation, according to the report.
He has been involved in the retractions of no less than five publications as a senior author. Dias sued the university, asserting that the techniques used in the months-long investigation and subsequent internal review were prejudiced. Since the institution was still deliberating on several matters, including Dias's employment status, a judge rejected the complaint in April, saying it was too soon for the court to intervene.
When asked for remark, Dias remained silent. His denials of data manipulation and misrepresentation continue. In 2017, Dias began her tenure as an associate professor at Rochester's University after working as a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard. He started a new lab and they started publishing a lot of papers on new materials with strange qualities, including a superconductor that could change the world.
Rarely found in nature, superconductors may transfer electrical current without dissipating any of that energy. Extremely high pressures, very low temperatures, or both are necessary for materials that are known to perform this, and these conditions are costly to sustain and scale. Potentially game-changing for the fields of electronics and engineering is a material that exhibits superconducting behavior at room temperature and pressure.
However, other academics who looked closely at the data in Dias's studies discovered anomalies, and their criticism of his articles was harsh and public. In response to the complaints, the journals that had published the articles began looking into the matter. The National Science Foundation's Office of Inspector General requested an investigation from the institution in 2023; the university had received funding for Dias's research from the NSF.
No comments were made by NSF or the Office of the Inspector General. The university hired three outside scientists to investigate Dias; they spoke with Dias, examined data from Dias's lab computers, and interviewed Dias's collaborators. Out of fifteen claims involving four articles, they found proof of research misconduct in each case.
According to the investigators, Dias purposely misled junior professors and students in his lab, and they found no indication of wrongdoing by Dias's colleagues at other schools. David Figlio, who was the provost of Rochester University at the time, sent Dias's case to the University Committee on Tenure and Privileges "for potential removal" when the investigation ended, stating that he agreed the report's conclusions. Both the UCTP and the hearing committee it established advocated for Dias's dismissal from the university. According to Mangelsdorf's letter, she agreed with those findings. The next step in deciding whether to fire Dr. Dias should be determined by the Board of Trustees, she wrote.
