Waterloo professor and grad student face plagiarism accusations

Prof. Dongqing Li, research chair at Waterloo, and graduate student Yasaman Daghighi have been accused of plagiarism for an article published in the Microfluidics and Nanofluidics journal. The article, entitled “Induced-charge electrokinetic phenomena,” was published in 2010 and retracted this summer. The subject of the paper was on advancements in lab-on-a-chip (or LOC) technology.

The article was retracted on account of using unaltered text and improperly cited figures from a pre-published research paper of the same name by Martin Bazant and Todd Squires, scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Santa Barbara, respectively.

Retraction Watch — a blog dedicated to tracking retractions in academic publishing — reported on the incident in August, but University of Waterloo staff has been quiet on what is to befall Li and Daghighi on account of privacy issues. Li had been editor-in-chief of Microfluidics and Nanofluidics until voluntarily stepping down after the retraction.

—With files from The Record, CTV Kitchener, and the Toronto Star