US University rehires professor acquitted of ties to China while receiving NASA grants

A letter acquired by the Knoxville News Sentinel suggests that the University of Tennessee has offered to reinstate Anming Hu, a professor who was cleared of federal charges alleging he concealed his affiliation with a Chinese university while receiving NASA research grants. According to the newspaper, Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor John Zomchick offered Hu a tenured engineering professor job in a letter dated Oct. 14. According to the report, Hu was reportedly promised $200,000 over three years to restore his research programme.

Hu was charged with wire fraud and making false statements and was detained in February 2020. Following a jury impasse in June, the judge declared a mistrial. Prosecutors filed a notice of intent to retry the case, but Hu was acquitted last month by the judge. The arrest was part of a larger Justice Department crackdown targeting university scholars suspected of hiding their ties to Chinese entities during then-President Donald Trump's administration.

Hu joined UT Knoxville in 2013

Hu joined UT Knoxville in 2013 and was later asked by another professor to assist with the application for NASA research funding. However, two subsequent grant applications were successful. NASA is prohibited from working with China or Chinese firms under a regulation passed in 2012. Hu was a faculty member at the Beijing University of Technology in addition to his post at UT, and the government has construed this prohibition to encompass Chinese universities.

According to the prosecutor's claims, Hu lied about his employment at a Chinese institution while applying for NASA-funded research funds. Philip Lomonaco, Hu's attorney, argued at trial that Hu didn't think he needed to mention his part-time summer work on a disclosure form and that no one at UT ever told him otherwise.

There is no proof that Hu wanted to harm NASA

Even if Hu intended to falsify his association with the second university, a judge determined that there is no proof that Hu wanted to harm NASA. The report also stated that Hu provided NASA with the study that it had paid for, and that there was no evidence that Hu received any funds from China or had anyone from China work on the projects. The judge also highlighted evidence that NASA's budget constraints were unclear.

(Inputs from AP News)

Image: Facebook/@Anming Hu, Unsplash