Apr 29, 2018 07:58 AM
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/f...en-decades
EXCERPT: Inder Verma, the prominent geneticist and cancer scientist who has made his mark on U.S. research for decades, has sexually harassed women [...] at the storied Salk Institute for Biological Studies [...] from 1976 to 2016 [...] he grabbed their breasts, pinched their buttocks, forcibly kissed them, propositioned them, and repeatedly commented on their physical attributes in professional settings.
[...] For decades, women at Salk have warned female colleagues not to be alone with Verma. “It was on everybody’s mouth that he was a harasser,” says Monica Zoppè [...] Salk administrators [...] have repeatedly protected him, say women who formally complained and other people with knowledge of the institute’s actions. Zoppè, for example, alleges that after she formally complained about Verma’s behavior, Salk administrators told her not to speak to anyone about the incident.
The allegations reported to Science are not as egregious as some examples of harassment in the scientific world. And many women who worked with Verma at Salk say he treated them with respect. “I found him to be an honorable and very supportive supervisor,” says Jane Visvader, a leading breast cancer researcher at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Parkville, Australia, who was a postdoc in Verma’s lab in the late 1980s. Visvader was one of 15 women Science contacted who said they experienced no harassment when working with or for Verma; another 12 women ignored or declined repeated interview requests. Among Verma’s backers, several praised his mentoring and described his kindness.
Yet some women who allege harassment say that after the incidents, they made career choices that would allow them to dodge Verma’s influence, or at least his presence....
MORE: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/f...en-decades
EXCERPT: Inder Verma, the prominent geneticist and cancer scientist who has made his mark on U.S. research for decades, has sexually harassed women [...] at the storied Salk Institute for Biological Studies [...] from 1976 to 2016 [...] he grabbed their breasts, pinched their buttocks, forcibly kissed them, propositioned them, and repeatedly commented on their physical attributes in professional settings.
[...] For decades, women at Salk have warned female colleagues not to be alone with Verma. “It was on everybody’s mouth that he was a harasser,” says Monica Zoppè [...] Salk administrators [...] have repeatedly protected him, say women who formally complained and other people with knowledge of the institute’s actions. Zoppè, for example, alleges that after she formally complained about Verma’s behavior, Salk administrators told her not to speak to anyone about the incident.
The allegations reported to Science are not as egregious as some examples of harassment in the scientific world. And many women who worked with Verma at Salk say he treated them with respect. “I found him to be an honorable and very supportive supervisor,” says Jane Visvader, a leading breast cancer researcher at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Parkville, Australia, who was a postdoc in Verma’s lab in the late 1980s. Visvader was one of 15 women Science contacted who said they experienced no harassment when working with or for Verma; another 12 women ignored or declined repeated interview requests. Among Verma’s backers, several praised his mentoring and described his kindness.
Yet some women who allege harassment say that after the incidents, they made career choices that would allow them to dodge Verma’s influence, or at least his presence....
MORE: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/f...en-decades