Enterprise Insider published its second story Friday night, reporting that Oxman “stole sentences and entire paragraphs from Wikipedia, different students, and technical paperwork in her educational writing.”
Oxman hasn’t responded publicly to findings within the second Enterprise Insider piece.
The allegations come on the heels of her husband’s public marketing campaign to have Claudine Homosexual eliminated as Harvard College president. Homosexual resigned final week amid allegations of plagiarism in her educational writing in addition to considerations about campus antisemitism because the Israel-Hamas battle rages on.
Right here’s a fast primer on Oxman.
Skilled profession – Oxman is a well known architect and designer whose work has been featured on the Smithsonian Establishment, the Museum of Fashionable Artwork in New York, San Francisco Museum of Fashionable Artwork, Centre Georges Pompidou, Boston Museum of Superb Arts, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Museum of Utilized Arts in Vienna, and Boston Museum of Science, in accordance with prior Globe reporting and her biography on the MIT website.
Her exhibition “Materials Ecology” was mounted on the MoMA in 2020.
“From tree bark and crustacean shells to silkworm webs and human breath, nature shapes Neri Oxman’s progressive design and manufacturing processes,” says the MOMA web site, which features a hyperlink to view the exhibition just about. “As a designer, architect, and founding director of The Mediated Matter Group on the MIT Media Lab, Oxman has developed not solely new methods of occupied with supplies, objects, buildings, and development strategies, but in addition new frameworks for interdisciplinary—and even interspecies—collaborations.”
MIT tenure – Oxman turned a tenured professor at MIT in 2017, the Globe has reported.
She based and directed the Mediated Matter analysis group at MIT Media Lab, her on-line bio says.
“Oxman coined the time period, and pioneered the sector of, Materials Ecology, which considers computation, fabrication, and the fabric itself as inseparable dimensions of design. On this method, merchandise and buildings are biologically knowledgeable and digitally engineered by, with and for, Nature,” her MIT bio says.
She left MIT in 2021, a school spokesperson told Yahoo Finance.
Brad Pitt connection – The Globe reported in April 2018 that Oxman and Hollywood A-lister Brad Pitt had been rumored to be romantically concerned.
“What’s the proof? There isn’t a lot besides that Pitt has been noticed on the MIT campus a number of occasions, most just lately final fall when he and Oxman posed, with others, for an image that has since been faraway from Instagram,” the Globe’s Mark Shanahan wrote on the time. “One other photograph, which does nonetheless exist on the social media website, exhibits Pitt with a bunch of MIT college students on the Media Lab.”
Oxman, who was beforehand married to the celebrated Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov, told the New York Times in a narrative that ran in October 2018 that she was not relationship the film star however was as an alternative relationship Ackman, whom she married in January 2019.
Ackman stated Sunday evening through X that Pitt and Oxman by no means had a romantic relationship.
Pitt “known as and expressed curiosity in her work,” Ackman wrote. “He came visiting Neri’s lab a few times, and he or she met him as soon as in San Francisco in reference to a cultural structure venture thought he was engaged on that didn’t go ahead. There was nothing questionable about her relationship with the actor. It was completely skilled.”
Epstein donation – Oxman got here below scrutiny in 2019 when it emerged that Mediated Matter, her MIT group, had acquired a $125,000 donation 4 years earlier tied to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted intercourse offender who died by suicide in August 2019 whereas awaiting trial on federal prices alleging he sexually abused quite a few underage women.
Oxman stated in 2019 that she met Epstein simply as soon as in 2015 at a gathering with then-Media Lab head Joi Ito.
“That is the primary and solely time I met Epstein,” Oxman said in a statement. “Joi assured me that Epstein was an authorised donor who wished to commit his fortune to science and expertise, partially to make amends for wrongs he dedicated earlier in his life.”
After the assembly, Oxman stated in 2019, Ito twice requested her to jot down notes thanking Epstein for his contributions. She, together with different professors, had been invited to dine with Epstein on a number of events, although she stated she by no means attended. And in 2017, Ito requested that her design lab, which frequently produced donor presents for the college, ship a token of appreciation to Epstein: a grapefruit-sized, 3-D printed marble with a base that lit up. It got here with a pair of gloves to keep away from getting fingerprints on the floor.
“Joi vouched for Epstein and his sincerity about his need to do good,” stated Oxman in 2019. “I took him at his phrase. From Epstein’s presents to the Media Lab, my group acquired $125,000 with MIT’s requirement that or not it’s saved confidential in order to not improve his repute by affiliation with MIT, and with the understanding that he wouldn’t be thought of a sponsor of our group’s analysis or have any involvement in how the funds had been spent. I remorse having acquired funds from Epstein, and deeply apologize to my college students for his or her inadvertent involvement on this mess.”
Materials from prior Globe tales was used on this report.
Travis Andersen may be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.
