The American Association for the Advancement of Science is reconsidering its decision to award UCLA chemistry professor Patrick Harran a fellowship in the wake of a fatal fire in a lab that Harran supervised, according to an article from the Los Angeles Times. Workplace safety experts, other chemists and the family of the woman killed in the fire have criticized AAAS for the selection.
According to the article, Harran was charged with four felonies, including willfully violating state labor codes by failing to provide proper safety training and failing to provide protective gear for lab workers, after a 2008 lab fire that killed research associate Sheharbano Sangji. A request to reconsider Harran’s fellowship comes from the chemistry section steering committee after it was reportedly discovered than Dr. Harran’s nomination materials failed to include information about the lab death and subsequent criminal charges.
Read the entire article here.
