McMaster University says a senior researcher has resigned from his position as a professor at the Hamilton School amid an investigation and hearing into “serious allegations of research misconduct.”
Wade Hemsworth, a spokesman for McMaster, told CBC Hamilton that Jonathan Pruitt resigned on Sunday.
Pruitt, who did not respond to CBC’s questions, joined the McMaster faculty in July 2018 after leaving UC Santa Barbara. The evolutionary ecologist, whom McMaster once described as an “internationally acclaimed” academic, had landed one of the sought-after positions at Canada’s 150 research chairs.
His research focuses on the “collective traits of various animal societies” – including ants, wasps and spiders – and how these traits affect their survival.
Pruitt was placed on paid administrative leave in November 2021 after a series of concerns raised inside and outside McMaster University. Federal funding agencies have also suspended payments related to the research chair’s role.
“The allegations of misconduct include external complaints about research conducted by Pruitt between 2011 and 2015,” Hemsworth said this week.
“Although Pruitt did not join McMaster until 2018 and the allegations involve work done at other institutions prior to his arrival, McMaster initiated an investigation under its Research Integrity Policy.”
The Hamilton Spectator previously reported that some scientific journals and academic peers had raised issues with some of its data, leading to academic articles being retracted.
Hemsworth said the panel investigating Pruitt is still ongoing and includes an ongoing hearing. He said it would be “inappropriate to comment further until the process is formally concluded”.
He did not say what led to the formal resignation this week, such as if the university reached a settlement or settlement with Pruitt, only saying that any settlement reached would be confidential.
McMaster’s probe doesn’t go far enough: former colleague
Nicholas Di Rienzo was one of the academics who worked with Pruitt and later saw their research retracted.
He previously said he and other academics found problems with Pruitt’s use of data and he had a stressful time, spending “hundreds of hours researching data, writing reports, dealing with editors” trying to do what we can “to correct the record of documents in which we were directly involved and access to data.”
He said in a telephone interview Tuesday that it was a “good thing” Pruitt resigned.
He also said the McMaster probe did not go far enough and the university should be more open about its findings.
“It’s really problematic, there are a number of my colleagues who still have their reputations damaged,” he said, referring to the lack of transparency.
“I am disappointed that there is no clear, more defined report from an independent inquiry.”
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