hat kind of gibberish e-mail you sent me yesterday? Are you out of your mind? Do you want me to fire you?"A PhD candidate from the Middle East averts his eyes from his computer screen as his supervisor, the head of a chemical-engineering laboratory at a US university, shouts at him, saying his student work plan isn't detailed enough. The supervisor then shares his screen and begins typing an e-mail, issuing instructions to terminate the PhD candidate's access to the lab.The exchange, which took place in November 2020, is from a series of videos seen by Nature that document a senior academic repeatedly yelling at his student, belittling him in front of colleagues and threatening to cut his income. The student and a former female PhD student colleague, who is also from a Middle Eastern country, allege that their group leader bullied them, but not other team members, because they were in the United States on a single-entry F-1 visa and he thus had the power to determine whether they could stay. They started recording the video meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic when, they say, his abuse moved online.The Academic Parity Movement (APM), a global anti-bullying initiative, defines academic bullying as sustained hostile behaviour, potentially including ridicule, threats, privacy invasions and interference with
HOW RESEARCHERS ABROAD CAN FALL PREY TO BULLYINGNature investigates multiple instances of scholars on working visas experiencing abuse and salary discrimination. By Nic Fleming