Gang Chen (Chinese:陈刚;pinyin:Chén Gāng) is a Chinese-born American mechanical engineer and nanotechnologist. At theMassachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he is currently the Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering. He served as head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT from July 2013 to June 2018.[6][7] He directs the Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center, an energy frontier research center formerly funded by theUnited States Department of Energy.[8] He was elected as amember of theNational Academy of Engineering in 2010 and of theNational Academy of Sciences in 2023.
In January 2021, Chen was charged by theUnited States Department of Justice under the now abolishedChina Initiative, for allegedly failing to disclose connections to several Chinese educational programs when submitting a federalgrant application.[9] His arrest prompted protests by other academics including MIT's then presidentLeo Rafael Reif and editorials in the scientific press over the United States government targeting of Chinese American professors.[10][11] One year later, federal prosecutors dropped the charges[12][13] after evidence showed that the disclosures in question were not actually required by the federal government.[14]
Gang Chen received aBachelor of Engineering in 1984 and aMaster of Engineering in 1987, both inpower engineering from theHuazhong University of Science and Technology.
He received aDoctor of Philosophy inmechanical engineering from theUniversity of California, Berkeley in 1993.[15]
Chen was an assistant professor atDuke University from 1993 to 1997 and a tenured associate professor at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles from 1996 to 2001. He joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001. Chen has made major contributions tothermoelectricity,[16]nanotechnology,[17] andthermal engineering.[18]
In 2022, Chen and a team of colleagues discovered that cubicboron arsenide is a highly effectivesemiconductor, a discovery with potentially important applications in electronics.[19]
Chen is a recipient of the K.C. Wong Education Foundation fellowship and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship (2002-3). He has received the NSF Young Investigator Award, an R&D 100 award (2008), and the ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award (2008). He is a fellow of theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science, theAmerican Physical Society, and theAmerican Society of Mechanical Engineers. In 2010, he was elected a member of theNational Academy of Engineering for contributions to heat transfer at the nanoscale and to thermoelectric energy conversion technology.[20] He was elected as an academician ofAcademia Sinica in the Division of Engineering Science in 2014.[21] In 2014, he also received the Nukiyama Memorial Award of the Heat Transfer Society of Japan.[22] He was elected as a Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in April 2018,[23] and of theNational Academy of Sciences in 2023.[24]
On January 14, 2021, Chen was arrested by theFederal Bureau of Investigation and charged with failing to disclose alleged connections to several educational programs in China in filing aU.S. Department of Energygrant application, as well as omissions in his IRS filings.[9][25] Chen was charged with failing to report contacts with Chinese entities to the U.S. Department of Energy, leading to an allegation ofwire fraud, with failing to file aforeign bank account report (FBAR) in some tax years, and with making false statements on his tax returns. The charge of wire fraud was based on alleged omissions from federal grant proposal form (Current and pending support) that was submitted electronically.
In response to these charges, the President ofMIT,L. Rafael Reif wrote to the MIT community stating: "For all of us who know Gang, this news is surprising, deeply distressing and hard to understand."[26] On January 21, 2021, more than 100 MIT Faculty submitted a letter to MIT President Reif, protesting Professor Chen's arrest and citing specific "deeply flawed and misleading statements" in the criminal complaint ending with "we are all Gang Chen".[10] The letter was tweeted next morning.
The FBI documents alleged that Chen received $19 million from China'sSouthern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech).[9][25] On January 22, 2021, MIT's president released a second statement pointing out that these funds went to not Chen, but to MIT itself to support a departmental research collaboration with SUSTech which Chen simply directed on MIT's behalf.[27][28]
The indictment provoked strong criticism. Many more MIT faculty signed the protest letter[10][29] questioning merits of the FBI's case and stating: "The defense of Gang Chen is the defense of the scientific enterprise that we all hold dear."[27][30] An opinion article inBloomberg remarked: "Ever since the Nazis drove Europe's greatest minds into exile, U.S. science has flourished by attracting talent from overseas."[31] An MIT researcher stated that: "The [Dept. of Justice's]China Initiative fundamentally misunderstands both research and international collaboration."[32]
On January 14, 2022, theWall Street Journal reported that federal prosecutors had recommended dropping the criminal charges against Professor Chen.[12] The same day,The Washington Post reported that the DOE forms had not required Chen to disclose his connections to Chinese educational programs, undercutting the basis of the federal charges.[14] On January 20, 2022, federal prosecutors filed a motion to drop the charges "in the interests of justice", and the US District Court dismissed the case.[13]
In aNew York Times interview published after his exoneration, Chen described the experience as "traumatic and deeply disillusioning ... 'I didn't do anything wrong'". After the charges were filed he was banned from the MIT campus and from contacting MIT employees. The postdocs he worked with were moved to other labs. He no longer had a research group or funding, and until the charges were dropped he worked alone on other topics. He returned to his MIT office the day after the case was dismissed.[33]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Federal prosecutors have recommended that the Justice Department drop criminal charges against a Massachusetts Institute of Technology mechanical engineering professor accused of hiding his China ties, according to people familiar with the matter...
Having assessed the evidence as a whole in light of the information, the government can no longer meet its burden of proof at trial. Dismissal of the indictment is therefore in the interests of justice.
Prosecutors alleged Chen failed to disclose ties to the Chinese government and a technology university in Shenzhen. But when they interviewed MIT grant administrators in early 2021, after the charges were filed, those officials said the application form Chen filled out in 2017 did not require disclosures such as ties to foreign institutions, according to one person.
These funds are about advancing the work of a group of colleagues, and the research and educational mission of MIT.
The U.S. is playing into China's hands by prosecuting researchers it ought to be welcoming.
Most of the time, the more you read, the more you understand. In this case, the more I read of that complaint, the less I understood.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
