Unfortunately, it is. I still haven't told the other professor that I wanted to join his lab and I am really afraid that this might hamper my work and research. My advisor is very influential as I said and a lot of the faculty including the other professor are part of his initiatives so I believe that if I "dump" him and then just send an e-mail, I might be ending my career in academia.



I trust the people who told me and one of them is a very very close friend of mine. No they haven't accepted it and every time we discuss the subject it ends up in sighs. We feel powerless and for me since I haven't worked the polishing machine yet, I wanted to find the best way to leave. They asked questions and were met with the perennial question: do you want to publish or not? Not everyone can say no and uphold their values and I don't want to be in that predicament. Also, some of them are halfway through and don't want to restart all over again.

I really salute you for taking up a stance to your advisor and refusing to polish your data. Persevere and work hard, at some point, a breakthrough by an honest person will trump all the noise generated by fraudulent people.

Thanks tru and tudor_queen for your responses. I have identified a faculty who is looking for PhD students and that I like his research. The problem is that my adviser is never around and rarely even answers mail from me so I can't schedule a meeting with him to break the news. The second issue is that he wields too much power in the department which is small (approx 20 professors) as he is raking in the most funding so I'm afraid that even I'd he let's me go other professors wouldn't take me in as they'll be afraid of him for one and for two I'm afraid that he may cause me further problems in the future. Anyhow, I greatly appreciate your help and responses and I will keep this thread updated with whatever happens in the future. Wish me luck.

Hi all,

I got a fully funded PhD in a very good university in the USA. My advisor who is from my country have earned quite the prestigious prizes and is getting bigger by the second. The problem that I have discovered once getting into the lab is that there is some unethical behaviour going on. Results were being "polished", authors were flipped and approaches were being overstated. Needless to say I am feeling very uncomfortable working in this environment and with someone with a lack of research ethics. The problem is that I don't know how to approach this issue and how can I switch advisors. Also, I feel that I owe the man because he supported me during my application.

Right now, I have talked with a senior lab member who is in his final year confidentially and he told me that he never saw that happening with him and advised that if I have any concern I should have a conversation with the advisor. The catch 22 is that some other lab members with whom I am close friends told me that they found their results changed to make them look like state of the art for their publications. I don't know who to trust here and I don't know what to do. Can you guys give me an advice on how to proceed?