BethAnn McLaughlin is an American neuroscientist, activist, and hoaxer. She is a former assistant professor of neurology at Vanderbilt University. Her research at Vanderbilt focused on neural stress responses and brain injury. After being denied tenure in 2017, she sought to have the decision overturned.[1] The decision to deny tenure was upheld, and her employment at Vanderbilt ended in July 2019.[2]
McLaughlin worked at MeTooSTEM, the non-profit organization she founded in order to advise scientists who are victims of sexual harassment.[3] McLaughlin's management style has been questioned by several leaders of MeTooSTEM after several resignations, and allegations of bullying and mistreatment surfaced.[4][5]
McLaughlin was suspended from Twitter in August 2020 for running a "years-long Twitter identity scam, wherein she allegedly pretended to be a bisexual, Native American anthropology professor at Arizona State University." McLaughlin soon after admitted responsibility for the hoax.[6]
Early life and education
McLaughlin was born in Boston and raised in St. Louis and New Hampshire.[7][3] She had an early interest in nature and science but was not as engaged in "formal science classes", in contrast to her brother who took to academic studies more readily. McLaughlin describes her brother as gifted, particularly in math, but the academic pressure "looked miserable" so she leaned more towards sports. During high school, McLaughlin was involved with the school newspaper and worked as a waitress.[7]
McLaughlin obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Biopsychology from Skidmore College in 1990.[8] During this time she spent a year in Africa studying wildlife management which inspired her to advocate for nature through organising campus events for Earth Day; she credits the success of this event as the point when she became "...hopelessly committed to causing good trouble."[7] McLaughlin obtained her PhD in the Neurological Sciences from the University of Pennsylvania in 1998.
Her research team studied how the brain responds to stress so that therapeutic solutions can be developed for acute and chronic injuries.[11] The McLaughlin Lab also looked into identifying new genes that affect vulnerability to injury and the reasons behind cell death. Their research focused on stroke, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and autism. Specifically, McLaughlin focused on understanding cell loss post hypoxic and ischemic insults (often in cardiac arrest and stroke).[12]
McLaughlin has collaborated with researchers in physics and chemistry to study organoids for drug screening, cholesterol in the brain, and sensitive sensors for metabolic signalling.[citation needed]
McLaughlin applied for tenure in 2015, but Vanderbilt delayed a decision on her application for two years while a disciplinary investigation was conducted.[1] The disciplinary investigation was based on accusations that McLaughlin was sending derogatory tweets to colleagues, from anonymous, multiuser Twitter accounts. She admitted to sending threats to colleagues, though does not recall if the specific threats of stabbing a colleague were specifically authored by her.[13] She was denied tenure at Vanderbilt in 2017.[1] She appealed the decision by filing a grievance with the university, and started a petition garnering social media support for her tenure. However, in 2019 the decision was upheld, and she left the university in July 2019.[2]
Activism against sexual harassment in science
In June 2018, McLaughlin and Julie Libarkin[6] created the website MeTooSTEM.com to share stories about discrimination and sexual misconduct in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This included her own experience as a witness for a Title IX case which she described as "arcane, unfair...vicious..and there is zero justice at the end and zero transparency."[14] McLaughlin states that she believes listing abusers and speaking out will reduce the pressure on academics to self-investigate potential sexual harassers, such as "...vet[ting] your new boss through the whisper net to see if they have sexually assaulted someone because there is no public record of most of these things."[14]
In June 2018, McLaughlin launched a campaign on social media to stop the red chili pepper "hotness" rating for professors at RateMyProfessors.com. The campaign received nearly 4,000 signatures and RateMyProfessors dropped this rating within 72 hours.[15][14]
In an August 2018 interview with The Scientist magazine, she claimed credit for causing the Herpetologists' League to revoke their Distinguished Herpetologist award to Richard Vogt, saying attendees who had "a lack of confidence" complained to her about material in Vogt's acceptance presentation showing students in bikinis.[14] However, McLaughlin was not present at the meeting, and herpetologists who were at the meeting immediately expressed their concern about sexual harassment issues.[16][17][18]
In November 2018 McLaughlin used social media to highlight efforts from university professors to bar a computer scientist from speaking at a conference because of known sexual harassment allegations.[3]
In an interview with the Journal of Cell Biology, McLaughlin asserted her belief that her involvement in advocacy has had negative impacts on her research, citing time spent away from the lab due to the long process that harassment cases undergo where safety is also of concern. She also stated that she has "demonstrably lost promotions, funding, and students because I've pulled awards out of the hands of harassers."[7]
As of 2019, McLaughlin works at MeTooSTEM, the non-profit organisation that she founded in order to advise scientists who are victims of sexual harassment.[3] On August 4, 2020, following a scandal on Twitter, McLaughlin wrote that she is "stepping away from all activities with MeTooSTEM to ensure that it isn't unfairly criticized for my actions."[6]
Bullying allegations under MeTooSTEM
From the founding of MeTooSTEM in 2018, through 2020, several leadership members of MeTooSTEM had resigned and raised concerns about McLaughlin's leadership.[19][5] These included accusations of "bullying" people within and outside the organization, hostility, harassment, and marginalization of people of color.[20] This included Sherry Marts, who shared the 2018 MIT Disobedience Award with McLaughlin, writing that she experienced "bullying and intimidation".[6] Other concerns involved a lack of transparency over the direction, structure, and finances of MeTooSTEM.[4] Some board members defended McLaughlin, with Carol Greider stating in 2019, "Much of her effectiveness has been in bringing truth to power and being in your face."[19] As of 2019, the organization had a small board and group of regular volunteers.[21] After McLaughlin's suspension from Twitter, she wrote in a statement that she is "stepping away from all activities" with the organization.[6]
In August 2020, the @MeTooSTEM Twitter account was also restricted by the platform.[22]
Twitter hoax
On July 31, 2020, McLaughlin posted on Twitter that her colleague, "@Sciencing_bi", supposedly a female Indigenousanthropology professor at Arizona State University (ASU), had died of COVID-19. She claimed the woman contracted COVID-19 after "[s]he was forced by her university to continue teaching in person until April",[23] though ASU had suspended classes in March 2020.[24] The anonymous account was created in 2016 and had been heavily involved with MeTooSTEM.[6][23]
After McLaughlin held a Zoom memorial service, attendees noticed that no one knew the account's true identity.[25] A spokesperson for ASU later said the university had no evidence that any professors had died, or that the professor in question existed.[24] An instance resurfaced wherein @Sciencing_bi had solicited donations over Venmo, and the Venmo account belonged to McLaughlin.[26] On August 3, 2020, McLaughlin's Twitter account was suspended[25] for violation of its "spam and platform manipulation policies" which prohibit maintaining fraudulent personas on the platform.[27] Shortly afterwards, the @Sciencing_bi account was suspended under the same policy.[28]
On August 4, 2020, the New York Times published a statement from McLaughlin provided by her lawyer in which she admitted responsibility for the hoax, and would be "stepping away" from MeTooSTEM.[6] She was subsequently removed from the editorial board of the Journal of Neuroscience.[29]
In 2018 she received the Society for Neuroscience Louise Hanson Marshall Special Recognition Award for her work on the advancement of women in neuroscience.[10][32]
Related Research Articles
Francisco José Ayala Pereda was a Spanish-American evolutionary biologist and philosopher who was a longtime faculty member at the University of California, Irvine, and University of California, Davis.
Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS) is an honor accorded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to distinguished persons who are members of the Association. Fellows are elected annually by the AAAS Council for "efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications [which] are scientifically or socially distinguished".
Inder Mohan Verma is an Indian American molecular biologist, the former Cancer Society Professor of Molecular Biology in the Laboratory of Genetics at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of California, San Diego. He is recognized for seminal discoveries in the fields of cancer, immunology, and gene therapy.
David M. Sabatini is an American scientist and a former professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 2002 to 2021, he was a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He was also an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 2008 to 2021 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2016. He is known for his contributions in the areas of cell signaling and cancer metabolism, most notably the co-discovery of mTOR.
#MeToo is a social movement and awareness campaign against sexual abuse, sexual harassment and rape culture, in which women publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment. The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual assault survivor and activist Tarana Burke. The hashtag #MeToo was used starting in 2017 as a way to draw attention to the magnitude of the problem. "Me Too" is meant to empower those who have been sexually assaulted through empathy, solidarity and strength in numbers, by visibly demonstrating how many have experienced sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace.
Celeste Kidd is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. She was amongst the "Silence Breakers" who were named Time Person of the Year in 2017.
Kathleen Kay Treseder is an American ecologist who specializes in the interplay between global climate change and fungal ecology. She also serves as a member of the Irvine City Council after being elected to the position in 2022. She is currently a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Microbiology, and the Ecological Society of America.
Kristina Killgrove is an American bioarchaeologist, science communicator, and author who primarily covers anthropology and archaeology news and engages in research on ancient Roman skeletons. She is a regular contributor to Live Science and previously to Mental Floss,Science Uncovered, and Forbes. From 2012 to 2018, she was faculty in anthropology at the University of West Florida and she has maintained an affiliation as a research scholar at the Ronin Institute since 2011. She is currently affiliated with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Raychelle Burks is an associate professor of analytical chemistry at American University in Washington, D.C., and science communicator, who has regularly appeared on the Science Channel. In 2020, the American Chemical Society awarded her the Grady-Stack award for her public engagement excellence.
Esther Choo is an emergency physician and professor at the Oregon Health & Science University. She is a popular science communicator who has used social media to talk about racism and sexism in healthcare. She was the president of the Academy of Women in Academic Emergency Medicine and is a member of the American Association of Women Emergency Physicians. She was a co-founder and a board member of Time's Up. On February 26, 2021, Choo was named in a lawsuit against OHSU alleging that Choo failed to take action when she was made aware of an alleged sexual assault involving Dr. Jason Campbell, who became popular on TikTok during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Beverly M. Emerson is an Emeritus Professor of Biological Sciences at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies who uncovered details about how cancer becomes drug resistant. She is currently a Distinguished Professor at the Oregon Health & Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Jane Kathryn Willenbring is an American geomorphologist and professor at Stanford University. She is best known for using cosmogenic nuclides to investigate landscape changes and dynamics. She has won multiple awards including the Antarctica Service Medal and the National Science Foundation CAREER Award.
The MIT Disobedience Award, given by the MIT Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a $250,000 cash-prize award that recognized and honored the efforts of an individual or an organization whose ethical disobedience of authority resulted in a positive social impact. The award was active from May 2017 to September 2019, when it was cancelled after connections between the Media Lab and Jeffrey Epstein became public.
Angela Lynn Rasmussen is an American virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.
Earyn McGee is an American herpetologist and science communicator. She is an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) IF/THEN Ambassador and a 2020 AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellow. In response to the racism faced by Black birdwatcher Christian Cooper in the Central Park birdwatching incident, McGee co-organized Black Birders Week to celebrate Black birders.
Michael Balter is an American science journalist. His writings primarily cover anthropology, archaeology, mental health and sexual harassment in science.
Sherry Marts is an American consultant on sexual harassment and academic who advises scientific associations on how to address and ameliorate institutionalized sexual harassment. While Marts was a PhD student at Duke University, working in cell biology, she experienced serious sexual harassment.
Picture a Scientist is a 2020 documentary highlighting gender inequality in science. The movie tells the stories of several prominent female researchers, and brings to light the barriers they encountered, including cases of discrimination and harassment. The movie features MIT's professor of biology Nancy Hopkins, the chemist Raychelle Burks and the geoscientist Jane Willenbring, among other scientists.
David R. Marchant is an American glacial geologist and former professor at Boston University. Prior to working at Boston University, Marchant worked at the University of Maine. His approach to glaciology has been described as "stabilism", the belief that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet has remained cold and generally stable for the past 15 million years. In 1994, an Antarctic glacier was named after him.
McAllister Olivarius is an international law firm dual-headquartered in London and New York. It specializes in civil litigation and plaintiff work, particularly in education and employment law.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
