Virgos Groove Posted August 31 Share Posted August 31 Quote Wu was a prominent neuroscientist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and left her mark on many other researchers in both the United States and China before taking her life in July. The 60-year-old former Dr Charles L. Mix Research Professor at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine took her own life in her Chicago home on July 10, according to Cook County records. Quote In addition to the personal tragedy for Wu's family and friends, the scientist's death drew attention yet again to much criticised efforts to pursue researchers suspected of having undisclosed ties to Beijing. The most high-profile of these efforts was the China Initiative, which was launched in 2018 during the Trump administration to counter alleged economic espionage and technological theft from China. It was heavily criticised for unfairly targeting people of Chinese descent and scrutinising them about issues unrelated to espionage. In 2022, the programme was officially terminated by the Biden administration. Quote In the past six years, more than 250 scientists – most of them of Asian descent – have been identified as having failed to disclose overlapping funding or research in China, or having broken other rules. There were only two indictments and three convictions as legal outcomes of those investigations, yet 112 scientists lost their jobs as a result. Quote In 2009, Wu was recruited by the Chinese government under the Thousand Talents Programme to help run a lab and train students at the Institute of Biophysics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. The programme sought to lure top mainland-born scientists in the US to return to China, either on a full-time or part-time basis. Quote Northwestern University has not responded to multiple inquiries from the Post since July. Wu's profile page on the medical school, where she worked for about two decades, has disappeared. Other web pages, such as her publication and grant records on the Northwestern Scholar website, have also been deleted. SCMP The new McCarthyism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aadrl1 Posted August 31 Share Posted August 31 It's a grey zone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mean Trees Posted September 1 Share Posted September 1 1 hour ago, aadrl1 said: It's a grey zone What? Anyway, RIP to Jane Wu. She didn't deserve this. Simply because of her nationality, she was bullied and stripped of her livelihood. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotham Posted September 1 Share Posted September 1 Higher ed in general, from my experience, seems so xenophobic it's insane. There's always a sense of "otherness" surrounding people who aren't from the States, especially China and India. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuanticXplosion Posted September 1 Share Posted September 1 😞 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBeMe Posted September 1 Share Posted September 1 Rest in peace :( this is so sad. there seems to have been no substantive proof indicating that she transferred knowledge or info that was illegal when she worked part time in China at that center…so unjust and heartbreaking Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrymeB Posted September 1 Share Posted September 1 As sad as this is, why not disclose that you are receiving funding from China and you are running a parallel lab in China? If you are hiding this from the US university that hired you, it's fair to wonder what else could she be hiding from them and the US government? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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