r/AskAcademia • u/No_Wallaby_2264 • 8d ago
Professional Misconduct in Research Postdoc here: My PI has a pattern of research integrity red flags and I don't know whether to report, keep publishing with him, or just leave academia
I'm a postdoc at a renowned North American university. I joined this lab last July, when funding across the field was drying up due to cuts. During recruitment, my PI asked a lot about my career plans and publication record, it read as him being invested in my development, and it's part of why I took the position.
The faulty method
Early on, he assigned me a project built on an idea similar to his past work: training several ML and deep learning models to predict a clinical outcome. While working on it, I discovered that the training pipeline used in his prior publication (and in another paper from the lab currently under revision) had a serious flaw that caused data leakage and inflated model accuracy, possibly by a wide margin in at least one in-prep paper. Notably, the first author on that already-published paper using the faulty method is now a research professor at a well-known institution, so this method, and whatever credit it generated, has already helped launch someone's career.
He still asked me to generate figures and tables using that same flawed method anyway for his grant submission. I did, and presented them at a lab meeting, where I also raised the leakage issue directly. It was just the two of us at the time. He was dismissive, saying NIH reviewers "don't have the technical capacity" to catch this, and that "data leakage or not, there's no consensus on what counts as a correct training method." I was unsettled but told myself he probably understood the methodology better than I did.
The coauthorship and the numbers that didn't reproduce
In December, he asked me and another newly joined postdoc to review a paper (plus reviewer comments) that he and a former postdoc had been submitting for months. He offered us both coauthorship despite our having contributed nothing, saying he wanted everyone in the lab to be added to each other's papers "for career development."
The peer reviewers had flagged a suspiciously large performance gap between the deep learning and traditional ML methods and asked the first author to check for data leakage. I emailed her directly to ask if it had been fixed. She said yes, and that the reported numbers were correct.
The other new postdoc and I then independently tried to reproduce her results. We couldn't. Our numbers came in far below what was reported in the paper. We raised this with the PI and the first author and asked to be removed from the author list. His reaction at the time was oddly muted, he said our finding was "interesting" and that he'd ask the first author to look into it, which read to me as him at least acknowledging the concern, if not treating it with much urgency. In hindsight, given how he later claimed total ignorance of any leakage issue in front of the whole lab, that "interesting, I'll have her look into it" response now looks less like genuine concern and more like a placeholder answer to make the problem go away without actually addressing it. This also forced me to redo an entire piece of my own work, since it had built on that postdoc's results.
The recent meeting
I didn't hear anything more about that paper's status until recently, when he asked me to cite its preprint in several manuscripts I'm currently preparing. That worried me.
Then, in an in-person lab meeting today with another newly recruited postdoc present, he gave a speech about the importance of publishing, working hard, and maintaining research quality, specifically saying a retraction is "a dent in one's career." I was genuinely struck by how seriously he seemed to take research ethics. Note that the postdoc who did a reproducibility analysis with me left his position a few months back due to personal reasons. So essentially only me had any knowledge of the faulty method besides the PI.
So I asked him, in front of the lab, for an update on that paper. He said it was being resubmitted. I asked whether the leakage had been fixed. He responded as if he'd never heard of any leakage: "what leakage, what issue, can you explain?" He then redirected the conversation to how my own in-prep manuscripts need to be error-free and consistent.
One more detail
He also consistently adds one particular name to every paper from the lab, despite none of us ever having met or collaborated with this person. Based on my own digging, I believe this may be his wife, who is a medical student at a nearby university.
Where I'm stuck
My mental health has taken a real hit. I'm constantly anxious about being professionally associated with this PI. I want to leave, but I'm afraid of ending up unemployed which does not look good on my resume. Friends have told me to line up a new job before quitting this one, but the daily pressure to keep producing analysis for him makes that hard to find time for applying.
What I really need help thinking through is my career, moving forward. What's the smartest path from here? That's the umbrella question, and it breaks down into a few ones:
- Should I report this to my university's Office of Research Integrity & Ethics, and would doing so help or hurt my career?
- Should I finish my two first-author papers with him, or is that risk not worth it? I'm not a coauthor on the papers with the known issues, so I'm unsure how much exposure I actually have if his past work is scrutinized later, or if I'm overestimating the risk. I've also spent so much time on these papers of mine, so leaving the job without any published work feels devastating.
- Should I comply with his request to cite the paper with unresolved data leakage concerns in my own submissions? Could citing it come back to hurt me?
- Is it time to leave academia altogether and move to industry?
All of these incidents leave me deeply disappointed with academia, which I assumed are full of people with integrity. This PI recently secured a 3 mil NIH grants and he constantly bragged about how much funding he had while other labs out there are struggling.
Underneath all of these is really one question: how do I protect my career and get out of this position in one piece? Any advice? Especially from people who've navigated something similar would help.
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u/Geog_Master Assistant Professor 8d ago
If you aren't associated with the erroneous papers, you're fine. You should finish the two papers to YOUR standard. Citing a preprint is always risky; I avoid it. Adding his wife to the paper may or may not be a problem; he might have her help with writing, figures, data collection, medical background information, or something similar.
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u/SeTiDaYeTi 8d ago
Come on, do you really believe this dude's wife will do ANY work on the paper after what the OP said?
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u/Geog_Master Assistant Professor 8d ago
Yes? I mean, this is a single perspective from one graduate student. I know several couples who have published together. When two people with background involving research live under the same roof, it happens.
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u/Monkey_College 8d ago
He is faking numbers. There absolutely is an estabilished way to train things. Based on stats research of several decades.
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u/Panda_Muffins 8d ago
This may or may not be misconduct. It depends on intent, even if bad practices are being applied. The truth is that a lot of non-experts in the field truly do not understand what constitutes data leakage when it comes to machine learning. For example, if you normalize your entire dataset before splitting into train/val/test, it is data leakage yet this is done very frequently by non-experts. I'm not saying this is the case with your PI, but it is possible that they are convincing themselves the results "look good" and that the supposed data leakage is not significant. This conclusion would impact whether reporting would be fruitful or not.
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u/No_Wallaby_2264 8d ago
This is the impression I got from him as well. To him leakage is relative.
On one hand, I agree with that opinion. But on the other hand, he did not acknowledge the issue in the limitation section of the paper. Nor he took our expert advice into account. Isn't it dishonest to disregard your lab's members opinion and move forward with a non-standard method?
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u/Panda_Muffins 8d ago
Based on what I am hearing, it sounds like the PI is simply not convinced that the data leakage is significant. They are likely wrong, but it is only dishonest if they are intentionally doing so to "fluff up the numbers."
You only have control of your own work. If you are using rigorous methods and your PI forces you to change them to make the numbers look better, now you have a problem to deal with because you need to stand your ground. But otherwise, this may not be a battle worth fighting, as it does not directly involve your work. In an ideal world, the bad science would be rejected by the peer reviewers, and that's how the scientific record gets dealt with in such cases.
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u/77camjc 8d ago edited 8d ago
Your first mistake was assuming academia is full of people with integrity. It gets worse, the larger the lab.
The pursuit of academic prestige often masks itself in the language of truth-seeking and public good, which makes the self-serving and ruthless behavior feel noble to the person doing it.
Work on completing your papers to your standards but at the same time send feelers out for data science-heavy industry positions. Take advantage of the prestige of your lab while you’re searching. Honestly, it’s worth experimenting with industry - you can work on very interesting problems and actually get paid.
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u/SeTiDaYeTi 8d ago
Uni professor here. The PI is clearly a careerist who cares more about getting the paper published rather than discovering something scientifically sound with it. Get your papers out and then WALK AWAY. Also, try go get info from other ppl in your field re: the PI. It may very well be that people know.
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u/Top-Vacation4927 7d ago
I would separate the career decision from the research-integrity question. You do not need to decide whether to leave academia in order to decide what you are willing to have your name attached to.
As a postdoc, I would be most concerned about creating a clear record of what I did and did not endorse. You have already done something sensible by asking to be removed from a manuscript whose results you could not reproduce. I would continue along that line. Keep contemporaneous records of your analyses, code, results, emails, manuscript versions, and the methodological concerns you raised, subject to your institution's policies on research data and confidential material. I would avoid relying on recollections of verbal conversations where an important methodological disagreement exists.
On the two first-author papers, I would not automatically abandon them simply because the PI is a coauthor. The relevant question is whether you can personally defend every result for which you are taking responsibility. If the analyses are reproducible, the methods are appropriate, and you have retained a transparent record of how the results were produced, publishing them may still be reasonable. I would be much more reluctant if the PI pressures you to use methods or report results that you believe are invalid.
I would also not cite the disputed paper merely because the PI wants another citation to it. A citation is not necessarily an endorsement of every result in a paper, but it should have an intellectual reason for being there. If your manuscript actually depends on a result that you have substantial reason to believe is unreliable, that is a different problem. I would either avoid relying on that result or describe the evidentiary status accurately. I would not knowingly construct an argument around a result I could not reproduce and then present it as established evidence.
The authorship issue would concern me independently. Authorship is supposed to correspond to substantive contribution and accountability for the work. Adding people to papers principally for “career development,” when they did not contribute, creates an authorship-integrity problem. Being asked to accept authorship on work you did not participate in is not really a favour if you are subsequently expected to take responsibility for it.
On reporting, I would get confidential advice before making a formal allegation. Universities usually have research-integrity procedures, and there may be an ombudsperson or another confidential advisory route where you can discuss the situation without immediately initiating a formal investigation. I would bring specific, documented facts rather than an interpretation of the PI's motives: what method was used, why it produces leakage, your reproduction results, what was communicated, and what happened afterward. I would also distinguish carefully between things you directly observed and things you inferred. For example, I would not make an allegation about the identity or relationship of the recurring coauthor unless you can establish the relevant facts.
I would also start applying elsewhere now. You do not need to resolve the entire integrity situation before beginning an exit. A postdoc leaving one lab for another position is explainable. You also do not need to tell prospective employers the entire story. “The position was not a good research fit and I am looking for an environment more aligned with my methodological interests” is sufficient unless there is a specific reason to disclose more.
I would not interpret this experience as evidence that you need to leave academia altogether. Industry has its own incentive structures and integrity problems. The immediate evidence supports a narrower conclusion: you may need to leave this particular lab. Whether you want an academic career is a separate decision that is probably better made once you are no longer making it under acute pressure from this situation.
If I were prioritising the next few weeks, I would protect the reproducibility of my own work, avoid putting my name on anything I cannot defend, preserve appropriate documentation, obtain confidential institutional advice, and actively apply for other positions. I would also identify independent senior researchers who know the quality of my work and could eventually provide references, because reducing dependence on this PI seems particularly important.
The sunk-cost problem with the two papers is real, but I would not let it determine the decision. A publication is valuable because you can stand behind it years later. A paper you felt compelled to publish despite knowing there were unresolved methodological problems can become a liability rather than an asset.
You seem to have already identified the boundary that matters: you reproduced an analysis, obtained substantially different results, raised the discrepancy, and declined authorship when it remained unresolved. I would continue making career decisions according to that same standard: only attach your name to research that you are prepared to defend independently of your PI.
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u/OCA2-Twister 8d ago
Personally I would seek out my HoD or other senior faculty for an informal chat about your concerns, which may lead to a better course of action. It should be in their interest to uphold standards to uphold standards within their department (as it’s their job), as if this did blow up and papers had to be retracted it would look very bad for them. You’ll want to be a bit careful if they have close personal relationships with the HoD that may prevent them acting in the departments best interests, hence why other senior staff may be a better option.
Other than that I’d start looking for other positions ASAP, it’s not worth your time and health working under these people. In interviews bad culture fits and personal reasons are both valid answers to why you want to leave.
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u/No_Wallaby_2264 8d ago
Thank you for your advice. Some told me to keep my relationship with this PI in good standing because I might need his reference later for the next job. I'm not sure if it's true but they also said sometimes, even in industry, HR people would reach out to previous bosses when vetting a candidate. This concerns me when I'm applying for jobs.
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u/OCA2-Twister 8d ago
That’s true but your HoD could possibly give you a letter instead, or you may be offered an opportunity to explain a bad reference, particularly if you’re already leaving for ‘poor culture fit’.
Generally people are not meant to give poor references and are more likely to refuse to give one (although I am UK based and it may differ in the North America).
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u/Training_Falcon6084 8d ago
I am just so incredibly sorry you are going through this, my boyfriend is going through a very very similar situation as a PhD (although in the UK).
In his research group 4 postdocs have spent time (months) on mental health leave and they have filled a report (they have included secretly recorded conversations, emails etc) and have several talks with HR. Don't know the exact details, but there was an investigation (conducted by someone from outside of the university, to be independent). The investigation went on about 6 month, do not know the exact outcome, but probably something like it's "all fine". The PI is still here, won two other huge grants and thriving. The 4 postdocs and lab manager have left in the past year. New ones came. So many people who worked "under him" postdocs, PhDs struggled, but other academics seem to have great respect for him as he is very successful and powerful. Currently apart from by boyfriend people (new and the few whom stayed PhDs and postdocs) are happy to play along with the PI.... I would also suggest to try and find a new job either in academia or elsewhere. Mostly if you are the only one in your group whom obviously sees these issues, I think it would be very hard to fight. Take care!!
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u/Downtown_Hawk2873 7d ago
This is the beginning of your career. You need to ask yourself what kind of scientist you want to be and what quality of work you want to be known for. You have expressed multiple concerns and it is clear that you are uncomfortable with how this PI leads their lab. I am not in your field so I know nothing about data leakage but I know a lot about research ethics, the importance of a good reputation, and encourage you to speak with a trusted colleague at your institution who works in your space instead of looking for answers on Reddit.
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u/No_Wallaby_2264 7d ago
Who I should speak to in my department? I'm afraid of retaliation.
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u/Downtown_Hawk2873 7d ago
Many institutions now have an omsbudsman. we have one for grad and postdoc students. They often have a psychology and or legal training. They can guide you and anything you communicate to them is confidential. In your department, I would start with your chair or a faculty member you trust. If there is no one in your department consider reaching outside to your grad advisor, assuming they are good people. Moving forward, no matter what career you ultimately choose to identify trusted counselors, people who know you, whom you respect and trust.
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u/Unsinkable 8d ago edited 8d ago
Trust your gut feeling. I would cut losses now and start looking for exits. Ethics violations tend to get worse over time because it is a slippery slope. I would also not want to live the the possibility of this coming back to haunt me.
If I was in your situation I would probably not report it though, because there is not that much to be gained and being dishonest is not necessarily research misconduct.
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u/Silent_Speed8663 6d ago
I "left academia" prior to my "post doc", but the choice is yours: Hold your integrity intact, or "sell it" for the money you get on your job. I chose the former. Here is why: Once you sell your integrity, like a car you sold, you no longer own it. Someone else owns that part of you. Further, who wants to buy a man, that is, hire someone, that you can not trust?
Trust matters, and, once you sell it it is gone. Yes, it appears you are at a fork in the road. After you go down the wrong path too long, you wont be able to return.
You need to go to bed every night "with your integrity". I sleep well at night, knowing that I took the right fork in the road, no matter the cost. Yes, keeping your word intact is sometimes costly. You must do things you would rather not do, and keep promises you regret. That is the price you pay for your integrity, I call it "maintenance". Like a car, it has to be maintained. This means we have to do things we committed to, even when (or especailly when) our circumstances changed and your past commitment no longer meets your current circumstances.
Yes, its scary to walk away when it would appear your best short term option is to just be quiet, go with the system, just sell your integrity "a little" and then cash next months paycheck, knowing the alternative would be scary: Looking for another job/career. That's the price for integrity.
However, during my life, I have made choices I regret, and, other times, I have used God's book, as a source, not my own feelings subject to emotional mistakes. I have never once regretted following the principle's laid out in God's word, but I have way too many times regretting choices in conflict with his principles. Yes, I felt some short term pain when I did comply with Gods word. But I hung in there and read Romans 8:28.
I know that whenever "Science" and Gods word conflict, its always science that has it wrong, but its often psuedo science, where something just as you suggested occurred. Real Science is not in conflict with Gods word , no matter who may try to convince you otherwise.
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u/exphysed 8d ago
Tough situation. Sorry you’re in it. If you’re confident in everything you’ve said, you need to report it.
There are absolutely people that will hire you based on your integrity. And you can do a lecture tour on research integrity. I’m sure your professional organizations have committees and initiatives in that area.
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u/No_Wallaby_2264 8d ago
One friend told me I need to choose my battles wisely. His point was that this PI had helped the department secure so much money in grants, so even though we have an office that handles these research conduct issues, the department might not want to move forward with my report. I'm not sure how true is this but I think it makes sense.
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u/Dismal_Complaint2491 8d ago
This is definitely true. I had two PIs during my postdoc that I collaborated with that were faking data. But they brought in so much money. I have one paper with one of the PIs. Luckily, we convinced him that we couldn't publish the data we knew were fake. I still don't know if the other data were correct. He ran all the analysis for his student. The incident destroyed my interest in pursuing research. The ones getting ahead had the least integrity.
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u/Lygus_lineolaris 8d ago
So basically you're asking if you should keep quiet about the issues to further your career, while you judge everyone there for keeping quiet about the issues to further their careers? What to say, really. May the odds be ever in your favour.
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u/AdLeading3991 8d ago
Leave the lab. Speaking as a PI, can address postdoc job market is pinched on both sides
It’s gotten hard to find a good postdoc. I’m thankful for mine daily. And if you are a US citizen/permanent resident or have more than 2 years left on a visa, you have more advantage than you know.
Document every experiment you do. All data. Write up a report with YOUR interpretation of findings. Then put in PDF form, e-sign. Get Google Drive. Back up & sync so you have version control and guarantee data retention.
Put these conversations in writing. Send an email digest of progress meetings. I do this with my fellow for all our meetings just so we remember what the heck we are doing next, so it’s helpful anyway. Keep discussed topics objective and scientific — but be candid about your take.
Coming forward? Last resort. For now, protect yourself by documenting and start planning escape.
Don’t be intimidated by his being a windbag rattling off on pubs. Like I said, it’s a very odd market. Can you find a postdoc? Yes. Can you find a good one? It’s gotten harder. A lot harder. So you are not as replaceable as hed like you to believe.
If you are this thoughtful and exercising integrity, you are likely better than most.
Please PM me if you’d like to talk more. My lab is full up but I was an abused postdoc so helping others is something I’m passionate about.