ATLANTA — The U.S. Department of Justice said the Georgia Institute of Technology will pay $90,000 to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act over a lack of oversight in their research department.
The National Science Foundation provided former Georgia Tech researcher Dr. Eva K. Lee with several grants over the course of her career, studying and modeling viruses and disease.
Lee, who was employed by Georgia Tech since 1999, was accused of mismanaging research funds and falsifying a certificate needed to receive a $40,000 award from NSF, then lying about it to investigators, Channel 2 Action News’ investigative partner the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, reported in 2020.
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According to reporting by the AJC, Lee received an annual $40,000 recurring grant from NSF since 2008. In 2014, the funding was paused, due to the need for a certificate of membership for certain professional organizations, which Lee did not have.
Instead, Lee was accused of falsifying this certificate in order to obtain the research funding, which she later admitted to in court and pled guilty to a single count of filing a falsified certificate in 2016, and making false statements to the inspector general’s special agent while being interviewed during the investigation.
Her plea deal prevented her spending time in prison, according to the AJC. Her attorney, Buddy Parker, said her actions had not hurt the university, or the...
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