Exclusive: Researcher who received settlement to leave University of Iowa won’t be starting new job

A cardiology researcher who left the University of Iowa with a six-figure settlement earlier this year won’t be starting the new job he’d lined up at the Providence VA Medical Center, Retraction Watch has learned. 

Justyn Charon, a spokesperson for the Providence VA, previously told us the researcher, Kaikobad Irani, would begin his new position “around November.” When we followed up, Charon confirmed, “there is currently no plan for Dr. Irani to be employed by VA Providence.” 

In the meantime, the University of Iowa in Iowa City has launched an investigation about the leak of a report regarding Irani to Retraction Watch that appears to be an attempt to identify the source of the document.

As we previously reported, administrators at the institution investigated allegations Irani had harassed mentees. That inquiry found, based on a “preponderance of evidence,” Irani had violated the university’s policies on harassment, professional conduct, and use of information technology resources, according to the report. 

In response to our request for comment on why he would no longer work at the Providence VA, Irani said: 

My VA employment was targeted using an illegally leaked and misleading investigation report into fabricated allegations of harassment. The allegations were made by persons who worked in my lab who I had in good-faith previously reported for serious violations of research integrity. The investigation did not verify the allegations made by those I had reported. After considering the totality of evidence and lack of evidence, University of Iowa authorities did not find I violated its anti-harassment policy. The narrative that my “previous employer found [I] had harassed mentees” and that my “behavior violated university’s policy on harassment” (see Retraction Watch Sept 19, 2024) is false.

Irani, who claims that the University of Iowa provost did not uphold the findings of the investigation, previously told us he had “faced a campaign of retaliation” for reporting one colleague for research misconduct and others for failing to disclose conflicts of interest on grant applications to the National Institutes of Health. The findings of the investigation “are largely based on false unsubstantiated allegations made by persons whom I had earlier reported in good faith,” he said when we contacted him for our earlier story. At that time, he did not dispute the investigation had found he had violated the university’s harassment policy. 

After publication of our story on the investigation report, Julian West, an investigator in the Office of Civil Rights Compliance at the University of Iowa, and Todd Rent, the university’s senior director of employee and labor relations, contacted us with questions about the document we had obtained, such as how many pages long it was, and whether and how it was redacted. 

Rent said their goal was not to identify our source, but to “determine whether our university’s existing document control procedures are sufficient to maintain an environment where campus community members feel safe raising concerns.” 

To avoid providing information that could identify our source, we declined to answer their questions. They, and the University of Iowa media relations office, did not respond to our request for comment on their investigation into our source for the document.

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