I’M SURPRISED THEY DIDN’T FIRE HIM FOR HIS DISCREDITED RESEARCH: Duke professor Dan Ariely had longstanding friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, newly released files show.
Dan Ariely, professor of business administration in the Fuqua School of Business and Duke alum, had a longstanding relationship with Jeffrey Epstein over the course of at least six years, per newly released documents from the Department of Justice in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Ariely is named 636 times in the more than 3 million additional files released on Jan. 30. He was a prominent professor at Duke over the course of his correspondence with Epstein.
Per The Chronicle’s review of the documents, Ariely, Graduate School ’98, and Epstein met at least seven times from 2010 to 2016. Ariely and Epstein appeared to have been friends — in an email dated Sept. 20, 2011, Ariely promised Epstein a ticket to a small TEDtalk gathering, despite the tickets already having sold out. . . .
At Duke, Ariely has received criticism since 2010 that his studies lack reliability and reproducibility. In particular, Ariely faced allegations for falsifying data in a 2012 paper about methods to discourage dishonesty, prompting the article’s subsequent retraction.
In January 2024, Ariely told The Chronicle of Higher Education that Duke had completed a confidential investigation, which concluded that the data had been falsified but Ariely had not fabricated it knowingly. A University spokesperson reportedly told the CHE that they could not be a source of information regarding the investigation.
In a February 2024 Academic Council meeting, Jennifer Lodge, vice president for research and innovation, explained that the University takes academic misconduct seriously but that investigations remain confidential to protect the privacy of faculty and those affiliated.