NEW DIRECTOR FOR U.S. OFFICE OF RESEARCH INTEGRITY

The office that guards against fraud in federally funded biomedical research has a new chief. Kathy Partin, a basic neuroscientist and administrator at Colorado State University, Fort Collins (CSU), will become director of the federal Office of Research Integrity (ORI) the week of 27 December. Partin will replace David Wright, who left ORI after 2 years in March 2014 after becoming frustrated with the federal bureaucracy and the little regard his office was given by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Beyond Washington, D.C.,ORI has often been criticized for moving too slowly to close cases and for meting out relatively light punishments for those found guilty of research misconduct.

Partin studies glutamate receptors in the brain. She is also assistant vice president for research at CSU and directs the university’s research integrity office, which offers training in research integrity and helps with misconduct investigations. In a 2014 article in Accountability in Research, Partin wrote that teaching researchers how to avoid plagiarism in science “is more difficult than it might appear.” She declined to be interviewed by ScienceInsider until she joins ORI, but in an email wrote that “I look forward to this amazing opportunity.”

Science historian Nicholas Steneck of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, a former consultant to ORI, says he doesn’t known Partin, but that she appears to have “the right background and experience.” He hopes she’ll take a broad look at efforts to investigate and prevent scientific misconduct at HHS and the National Science Foundation. “We developed our system in the U.S. going on 30 years ago,” Steneck says. “It is time to review what it has accomplished and whether our policies need to be updated.”