Another toxic lab: Akito Kawahara, entomologist at U Florida and director of the Florida Museum's McGuire Center. [Update: Details of meeting held by Kawahara to mobilize lab members]
A leading expert in the evolution and diversity of butterflies and moths has allegedly left a trail of depressed and disillusioned young scientists. Is there a better model for doing science?
Introduction.
As 2024 turns into 2025, I will begin my tenth year of reporting on misconduct in the sciences. A project that began when I was a correspondent for Science has continued in investigations and reports for other publications, then in reports on my now largely inactive but still easily accessed blog, and then, the past few years, onto this platform, “Words for the Wise.”
What started as investigations into sexual harassment in the sciences expanded into reports on bullying and other toxic behavior by senior scientists, often well-known names in their fields. A “Rogue’s Gallery” that includes links to most of these reports can be found here. I am doing them less frequently now, especially over the past year, since I launched a Substack newsletter for the Hudson Valley village I now live in. That takes up most of my free time at the moment.
A fairly lengthy explanation of the history of my involvement in these issues, including some insights into my motivation for doing this reporting, can be found at this link. That story focuses on a lab at Yale University run by Walter Jetz; remarkably, that story has now been viewed hundreds of thousands of times and is featured prominently in a Google search of his name. He is still at Yale, and still active in his field, but one can hope that the exposure of his toxicity has led to some modifications in his behavior.
Like so many investigations that I have undertaken, that one began when current and former members of his lab, aware of my work in this area, contacted me and asked me to help out. I have rarely sought out these stories, now and before, but I find it hard to turn them down when I am approached by young scientists eager that no one else experience the traumas that they have.
As I wrote in the Introduction to the Jetz story, these toxic situations:
“…are not just due to the individual failings of the lab and institution directors who abuse their powers, but are symptomatic of an academic culture based on extreme power differentials and hierarchical structures, often infused with a profoundly anti-democratic spirit inimical to the spirit of free inquiry which scientists are supposed to live by.”
Thus the toxicity of labs like Jetz’s and so many others represent the normalization of a hierarchical approach to science that well suits the ulterior motives of institutions eager to get their cut of large government research grants, and the prestige that having famous scientists brings. Indeed, I think this is a lot of the explanation for why so many labs are like this. (Certainly far from all, it is important to add.)
But some lab directors, either due to their own histories, their personalities, or their individual pathologies, manage to create an atmosphere so toxic that it does considerable damage to young researchers who come to work with them, full of hope and love for science.
Alas, it is time to report on another one. As usual, I undertook this inquiry not on my own—I had never heard of entomologist Akito Kawahara before now—but because former members of his lab approached me and asked me to do it.
I ended up communicating with six former members of Kawahara’s lab, plus other members of the entomology community who know him and his behavior well but from a bit more of a distance. There was a remarkable uniformity to what they all had to say. That is fortunate, because entomology is a small world (the Entomological Society of America meeting is going on in Phoenix right now, as I write) and so it is possible to elaborate on certain common themes in their experiences without identifying any individuals.
It is precisely because the entomology community is small, with power vested in the hands of senior scientists like Kawahara, that my informants have asked for anonymity. They are afraid, and in some cases terrified, that he will find out who they are and retaliate either directly or through colleagues who want to stay on his good side.
Nevertheless, I know who they all are, have verified their identities, and can assure readers that what follows is based solely on what they have told me. While each story is different in its own way, there is so much overlap and so many common themes to what they experienced that confirmation of their stories is embedded in the totality of their testimony.
I hope you will join me in saluting these young scientists for their courage in talking to a reporter despite their fears. They are the future of science, even if in some cases they have gone through hell to become scientists.
Who is Akito Kawahara?
A brief biography of Kawahara can be found on his Wikipedia page, but most importantly he is a professor at the University of Florida, and director of the Florida Museum’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, a post he was appointed to just last year. His lab studies cutting edge topics in insect evolution, diversity, and behavior, which is why so many students and other young researchers are eager to work with him.
Kawahara is highly mediagenic: His Ted Talk, “Why You Can Thank a Moth,” can be found here, his work has been featured on NPR and PBS, and he recently wrote about moths for The Washington Post.
“Akito has incredible influence over the world of Lepidoptera, and entomology generally,” one entomologist who asked not to be identified told me.
But former members of his lab give him very negative reviews. Says one, in a comment echoed by the testimonies of all six former lab members I talked to:
“Akito knows how to find top talent, and over the years I've seen these brilliant, kind, top of their field researchers break down, doubt themselves, become severely depressed, and question themselves and their intelligence. I have sat in too many meetings listening to capable people who belong in science question whether they deserve to be there. I've seen friends break down and cry, and very young students put in dangerously ethical situations that could ruin the rest of their careers.”
A number of common threads run through what I was told by former lab members:
— Kawahara routinely belittled students and other junior scientists both privately, in conversations with them about their work, as well as publicly in lab meetings.
— Kawahara routinely misappropriated (some say stole) research ideas from his own students, used them to submit his own grants or gave them to other students or colleagues who then did the work and earned research publications.
— Kawahara routinely demoted students in the list of authors on publications who in some cases had done most or even all of the research being reported.
— Kawahara routinely failed to provide supervision and guidance to students and other colleagues, leaving them for long periods of time to fend for themselves.
— Kawahara collected and imported insect specimens from Ecuador and other locations before permits to do so were officially approved, and encouraged students and colleagues to do the same.
— Kawahara, deliberately or not, reinforced the feelings of students and other colleagues that they were at fault for failing to progress in their work, and failed to provide a nurturing environment in which young scientists could flourish.
The devil is in the details, of course, and I wish that I could provide more of the mountains of details I was provided by our sources. But to protect them, I will have to stick to quoting more generic comments from the scientists:
“Once I started to hear other lab members' experiences, we all realized we were not crazy, and this was not our fault, and it definitely was not the experience of other grad students in healthy labs. We realized that we were all intentionally isolated, manipulated to be competitive and self-loathing, so we would produce higher output (# of papers, grants, awards) for Akito.”
“When I entered Akito’s lab I was a hopeful, kind, and accomplished scientist. I had a plan for my career. He neglected me as a scientist and human… he was unreliable and at times displayed unethical behavior, and he did nothing to support my career.”
“When you first start working for him he gains your confidence by disparaging the attitude, productivity, decisions, even aptitude of whoever you replaced or another colleague you are to be working with. You feel like you’re being taken into his confidence.”
“It almost became a numbers game to him. Get a lot of graduate students that you don’t help at all, have them pump out a bunch of papers, and attach your name on [them] since they are your students.”
“I was constantly anxious, clinically depressed, and very isolated. I thought this was a typical graduate student experience, blamed myself, and pushed myself to work harder….”
The reports of feeling deeply depressed were common from my sources, which is particularly troubling given the University of Florida’s history of student suicides—nearly 20 in the last ten years. (For a disturbing but very insightful investigation into how a professor can drive a student to suicide, I recommend this masterful treatment of the subject from the late 1990s by my former New York University journalism colleague Stephen Hall.)
What is to be done?
The fact that entomology is a small field makes it dangerous for students and other junior researchers to speak out about their experiences, given that Kawahara and collaborators from other institutions—who are usually more likely to side with the powerful than the powerless—have considerable ability to retaliate and ruin the careers of students and early career researchers before they can even get off the ground.
On the other hand, Kawahara does not run the only entomology lab in the United States or the world, and colleagues can make sure that everyone sees this report and that everyone is warned about what they are likely to experience if they go into a particular lab. I believe that many in the entomology field already know that this report is coming.
I have few illusions that the University of Florida or the Florida Museum will take any action as a result of these allegations, although some of my investigations have actually led to the firing or forced retirement of senior investigators (see here, here, here, and here, just as examples.)
What we can hope for, however, is that Kawahara, either on his own initiative or through pressure by university or museum officials, can be induced to change his behavior.
Has that happened before? Rarely, in my experience. In which case, for anyone thinking about joining his lab, caveat emptor.
Update November 16: According to sources who were present, yesterday, November 15, Kawahara held a meeting of his lab to organize a campaign to “neutralize” the allegations in this report. The meeting was scheduled for 11 am in the conference room of the McGuire Center, of which Kawahara is the director. A Zoom link was also provided for those who could not make it in person.
In addition to posting comments here, Kawahara was keen to have the lab members contact a reporter for the University of Florida independent student newspaper, The Alligator, who also began working on a story about the atmosphere in Kawahara’s lab after this investigation was published.
While Kawahara said that everyone was free to do what they wanted, the sources emphasized that his expectations of lab members were clear. He denied the allegations and urged everyone to tell “the truth” about him and the lab. He also asked them to email influential colleagues at the Florida Museum and a dean to express their views. He referred to the lab members as his “second family” and told colleagues that it would be bad for the group if the allegations were not countered in various ways.
Several students agreed to take these actions, although others told us that they were very uncomfortable with the situation and what they perceived as pressure from Kawahara to defend him against the testimony of former students from the lab.
This may explain why, a few hours after the meeting, four anonymous lab members posted in the Comments section of this story in defense of Kawahara.
Further update: A key official at the Florida Museum whose actions in this situation will be important to monitor is David Blackburn, Associate Director of Research and Collections. Multiple sources indicate that he is aware of the allegations. I have asked him to comment about what his obligations are to report the allegations to other museum officials and to University of Florida officials.
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A comment that attempted to smear me and that made false allegations about my career as a journalist has been deleted. Please keep comments respectful and to the point. As I explained in the post itself, I do these investigations when people come to me and ask me to look into certain toxic situations or present allegations of sexual harassment. They are not fun, I am not paid for them, and so I do not feel the need to take abuse or accept recycled old lies from people who have tried to stop my reporting in the past. I will just add that the former lab members provided me with lengthy and very detailed accounts of their experiences, which I was able to cross-check in various ways. But since the details would identify them to Kawahara and invite retaliation, I was not able to publish them in full.
We've seen an interesting but depressing display today. When the first member of Kawahara's lab came here to comment about their very different experiences, I accepted them as valid. Even when the second person commented, I still gave them the benefit of the doubt although I was suspicious. We ended up with four in just over an hour, and then we find out that Kawahara held a meeting and "asked" all of them to do this. So not only did they try to throw their scientific colleagues under the bus to curry favor with the lab director, but they have now amplified the toxicity of the lab. Not sure that people who would do this make good scientists, because they don't have the courage to put the truth above all else.