A researcher who posted on LinkedIn about a paper that plagiarized his work says he’s now the subject of an email campaign making false allegations about his articles.
In July, we reported that Sasan Sadrizadeh, researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, had his work plagiarized in a now-retracted paper.
“In what seems to be a direct response to our efforts,” as Sadrizadeh wrote in a recent LinkedIn post, his bosses, colleagues, and journals have been inundated with emails from impostors, accusing Sadrizadeh of misuse of funds and calling for the removal of his articles. At least one journal editor seems to have taken the allegations seriously.
Sadrizadeh’s case is reminiscent of the 2023 cyberstalking of Harvard Medical School professor Joseph Loscalzo on PubPeer.
Someone impersonating Thomas Hamacher, a researcher and professor at the Technical University of Munich in Germany, emailed several journal editors-in-chief in July, claiming to speak on behalf of the German Energy Agency (dena). However, the domain the email came from, “dena-de.net,” is registered to a Squarespace account that was created in June, according to the WHOIS domain database, while the official email domain of dena is dena.de.net.
In one instance, the false Hamacher sent an email to the editors of several journals, including Building and Environment Journal and Total Environment Journal, alleging Sadrizadeh had failed to disclose funding from dena for the research described in the publications. The emails accused Sadrizadeh of “misappropriation” of funds and “serious ethical misconduct.” They then request the “immediate withdrawal” of the article and “a pause on the review of publication of any pending submissions” by Sadrizadeh. “Relevant officials” from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology were copied, including the president, Anders Söderholm, and several vice presidents.
Bin Chen, an assistant editor at Journal of Cleaner Production, where Sadrizadeh has at least two papers published, reached out to Sadrizadeh after receiving an identical email from the Hamacher impostor. Chen asked for a “prompt and full response within two weeks” and said he would also consider informing the research institution and funding agency that supported the research. “Please note that if we do not have an adequate and timely response, we may be forced to conclude that the allegations are truthful,” he said.
After Sadrizadeh responded, informing the editor that the emails were spam, Chen told him the journal “understand[s] the case now” and that Chen would inform the other editors.
Sadrizadeh told us that he does not receive funding from dena. The grant number cited in the impostor emails was “DEA 2024.315.4H.”
Fiona Vonnemann, a member of dena’s legal council, told Retraction Watch she “cannot confirm” if the grant “even exists” and said it was “likely fabricated.”
On July 30, the Hamacher impostor sent an email to KTH President Anders Söderholm, telling him “a lawsuit has been filed against him by the German Energy Agency.”
Sadrizadeh said he sent Hamacher an email letting him know that he was being impersonated. Sadrizadeh said the two then spoke on the phone and that Hamacher is aware of the problem. Hamacher did not respond to our request for comment.
Vonnemann confirmed “the sender’s email address is not ours” in an email sent to Sadrizadeh. She also said “there is little we can do in this situation, as these actions do not constitute a criminal offense.”
In an email to Retraction Watch, Vonnemann confirmed that the emails are not affiliated with dena. “The statements in these emails do not in any way reflect views of dena. They appear to be spam emails,” she told us.
An unnamed representative of dena in a different email said they had contacted the dena IT department, and asked for Squarespace correspondence from Sadrizadeh “so i [sic] can look into pressing charges.” However, Vonnemann said in an email the “only action we are taking (from a legal standpoint) is to prevent the misuse of an email address that mimics ours.”
Sadrizadeh sent Squarespace an email requesting an investigation into the domain and for Squarespace to reveal the people behind it. A representative responded, saying they “take reports like this very seriously, and we actively keep track of them.” The domain no longer works and it isn’t available online. Emails we sent to the address that contacted the journals bounced back.
Squarespace did not respond to our request for comment.
Someone using another email account purporting to be that of Fariborz Haghighat, a researcher at Concordia University, sent an email to several KTH faculty members, including Sadrizadeh, with the subject line “No place for energy engineering <brainfarts> in scientific literature.” The email contained only a link to the PubPeer page for the PhD student mentioned in our original post, Amirmohammad Behzadi. Many of his papers have PubPeer comments accusing Behzadi of over-citing his own work.
Haghighat did not respond to our request for comment.
Although Sadrizadeh told us he believes the comments are another attempt to discredit him and Behzadi, some of the PubPeer comments date from December 2023, months before he went public with his plagiarism charge.
Many of the comments contain similar critiques of unnecessary self-citation. In one, on the paper “4E analysis of efficient waste heat recovery from SOFC using APC: An effort to reach maximum efficiency and minimum emission through an application of grey wolf optimization,” user “Tricorynus dichrous” commented, “fundamental terms don’t need to be cited with any source because they are direct explanations of the first and second law of thermodynamics,” but the paper had cited previous work of Behzadi and his colleagues for these equations. If any citations were necessary, the authors should have used a primary source such as a book, Tricorynus wrote.
Behzadi declined to comment on these allegations, but Sadrizadeh told us he thought they were “false” and referred us to Behzadi’s SCOPUS profile, which Sadrizadeh said shows only 8% of Behzadi’s citations are self-citations. Clarivate’s Web of Science shows the same percentage of self-citations.
Sadrizadeh said self-citation is “not only common but also often necessary to demonstrate the continuity and development of their research” and that failure to do so would make it “challenging to trace the evolution of their research and the cumulative knowledge they have contributed to the field.”
In his LinkedIn post about the emails, Sadrizadeh also said those who commented on his previous LinkedIn post calling out the plagiarism of his paper received emails accusing him of misconduct, as the journals had. Ola Eriksson, a professor at the University of Gävle in Gävle, Sweden, who had commented on the first post, replied that he had a “strong suspicion” the email he received was “bogus.”
Sadreizadeh told us the apparent retaliation against him felt like “organized crime. If you even go against these kind of people, they do whatever they can to stop you.”
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I don’t understand why the plagiarizing paper and authors are not mentioned in this article. Here it is, note that it is now labeled as withdrawn and has pubpeer comments.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378778824004705?via%3Dihub
WITHDRAWN: Optimizing smart building energy systems for sustainable living: A realistic approach to enhance renewable energy consumfaption and reduce emissions in residential buildings
Qusay Hassan a, Nadia Sarhan b, Emad Mahrous Awwad c, Tariq J. Al-Musawi d, Patrik Viktor e, Monika Fodor f, Amjad Iqbal g, Sergey Zhiltsov h, Azamat Makhmudov i, Ali Khudhair Al-Jiboory a, Ihssan Alrekabi j, Sameer Algburi k, Marek Jaszczur l, Aws Zuhair Sameen m, Maha Barakat n
pubpeer.com/publications/73F3B2DB05BB3AB061AC99E4426985?utm_source=Firefox&utm_medium=BrowserExtension&utm_campaign=Firefox
This is essential information.
“as these actions do not constitute a criminal offense.”
Imagine being falsely accused, and the wrongdoers have no criminal misconduct.
Sweden has defamation laws, but the punishment is a 6 month stay in a 5 star resort.
I don’t think this story has connect with the withdrawal research.
The hunter became the hunted.
Totally irrelevant. The person you call “hunter” (i.e. Dr. Sadrizadeh) was the victim from the very beginning. He was never the “hunter” or predator. He was plagiarized, and then instead of getting an apology, received even more attacks.
Professor Sadrizadeh’s definition of self citation is very accurate, but when I look at the Pubpeer records of his student Mr Behzadi, I can say that Mr Behzadi’s work does not meet Professor Sadrizadeh’s definition. Indeed, for very basic equations Mr Behzadi cited his own work as a reference. Moreover, Mr Behzadi’s Pubpeer record is not only self-citation. He also cited papers by other names in a similar manner using famous equations. Most of these names are co-authors of Mr Behzadi in other works. In addition, Mr Behzadi has given unnecessary citations as well as inaccurate references. According to what I read in the Pubpeer records, the references he used for quantitative information in his article do not contain that quantitative information.
I recommend Professor Sadrizadeh to follow the work of his student more closely. At least the ones with his name on them.
Can you please provide the link to the Pubpeer records you mentioned?
Much of Mr. Behzadi’s work can be found at the link provided by Retraction Watch in this article. At your request, I am sharing with you here the links to four of the works I found by following that link.
1- https://pubpeer.com/publications/662B7F162C7B25AF5C237354577DAA#1
2- https://pubpeer.com/publications/8419924E8FFB28EDC6B6E2EA26143E#1
3- https://pubpeer.com/publications/B3056CE7A0DCA02DBCA9302873C3E5#1
4- https://pubpeer.com/publications/A5F39F35168502EFD439373A426F26#1
These studies are not the most prominent ones. I have selected them at random. All the links show what I mentioned above; Mr. Behzadi not only made unnecessary self citations to himself, but also made unnecessary citations to other researchers’ papers. Presumably other researchers have made similarly unnecessary citations to Mr. Behzadi. Some of the links have also been analysed for citations. You can see. Indeed, as a result of these approaches, we see a PhD student with a citation and h-index number as high as a professor rather than a PhD student. With this method, as Professor Sadrizadeh mentioned, the percentage of self-citation in the Scopus profile appears low. Note that Professor Sadrizadeh’s citation count and h-index are much lower. These do not seem to be normal.
In addition, another work by Professor Sadrizadeh seems to have come to the fore. I’ve just noticed it.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/DEAA25F7C32A572C9C25B9651E99C2#1
For future reference, if you input a paper’s DOI or PubMed number into the search field on PubPeer, the site will retrieve a link to any comments that have been made.
In this case, a search for 10.1016/j.enbuild.2024.114354 (provided in the first comment above) will direct you to this thread: https://pubpeer.com/publications/73F3B2DB05BB3AB061AC99E4426985
Thanks Eq and Cheshire.
It’s shame that PhD student has 10 articles under fire on Pubpeer; one can only wonder how this will impact when he becomes a professor.
https://www.pubpeer.com/search?q=Amirmohammad+Behzadi
If some of articles retract, his PhD study will be in risk, especially in universities such KTH.
In fact, more than 10 of his papers are on Pubpeer. So far, 23 articles authored by Mr. Behzadi are on Pubpeer. When you click on the link, 10 articles appear at first. When you click ‘load more’ under the last article, another 10 articles appear. Click once more and 3 more articles appear. These studies are authored by Mr. Behzadi. Works in which Mr. Behzadi was not the author, but in which other colleagues made unnecessary references to him, as he did, are not included in these 23 articles. Therefore, instead of considering Mr. Behzadi alone, I think it is necessary to consider Mr. Behzadi together with the group of colleagues who increase the number of citations and the h-index by making unnecessary references to each other.
Mr. Behzadi’s ten works with Professor Sadrizadeh are on Pubpeer. He also has eight papers with Ahmad Arabkoohsar, probably his previous supervisor.
“It’s shame that PhD student has 10 articles under fire on Pubpeer…”
That’s a good thing.
Successful people are those who work silently and quietly without conflict of interest with others.
Sadrizadeh could have solved the plagiarised issue quietly and diplomatically, but he put himself, his reputation, his job, and his doctoral student “under fire”.
There is a type of people who bring trouble upon themselves.
Very wrong on many accounts:
1. What you said is called “blaming the victim”.
2. “Conflict of interest” is irrelevant to Sadrizadeh’s story. Conflict of interest means something totally different:
https://compliance.ucf.edu/understanding-conflict-of-interest/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest
https://ori.hhs.gov/education/products/ucla/chapter4/default.htm
3. Even if you incorrectly meant “conflict” by “conflict of interest”, again your comment was not relatable. How can someone has no conflict with a thief stealing from him?! A Conflict is inherent to stealing and violation.
4. Averting all conflicts at all cost even against the bully thief who has openly plagiarized you is not called success; it is called cowardice.
5. Such a “diplomatic” cowardice (i.e. quietly negotiating with the bully thief) would only embolden thieves and plagiarizers.
6. Keeping quiet is not a necessity for success. Both quiet/diplomatic versus loud people can become successful or fail, depending on thousands of factors. Even sometimes being brave and fighting for one’s rights in the face of injustice brings more success.
7. Being successful at all cost –even at the expense of swallowing one’s pride and tolerating humiliation, just to be diplomatically “successful”– is not even a value. It is the deepest form of shame.
8. Doing the right thing (e.g., fighting crime or at least fighting for your own right) has a price in a society filled with thieves and predators. I respect Dr. Sadrizadeh for exposing his plagiarizer. We need more of these researchers.
9. Kudos to Retraction Watch and all investigative journalists for exposing cases of misconduct.
10. Such successful journalists are counterexamples to your comment. These people fight and expose scientific misconduct. And they are very successful.
I partly agree with this comment, but strongly disagree with some other parts. What I agree with is that he should not have remained silent. I think Professor Sadrizadeh did the right thing and did not remain silent against both those who plagiarise his paper and those who harassed him with fake DEA/DENA emails. Any diplomacy with researchers who plagiarise papers will make them feel more important. I think every researcher should be able to speak up when necessary.
At the same time, however, Professor Sadrizadeh is inappropriately normalising the wrongdoing of his student. I agree with Retraction Watch’s note that his student Mr. Behzadi’s problematic citation preferences go back to 2023 in Pubpeer. Professor Sadrizadeh’s complaint about his plagiarised paper is more recent. So, Professor Sadrizadeh is doing several things wrong at once;
1- He links those responsible for his plagiarised article and those threatening him through the DEA/DENA with the Pubpeer comments of his student Behzadi. In terms of timeline, this is impossible. Mr. Behzadi’s problematic articles were commented on Pubpeer much earlier.
2- He gives an accurate definition of self-citation, but uses this accurate definition to explain his student’s flawed citation preferences. This is wrong. That’s really, really wrong. Any researcher reading the Pubpeer record would not put the self citation definitions of Professor in the same category as Mr. Behzadi’s work.
3- Pubpeer comments do not have only problematic self citation but also many flawed approaches as mentioned in the comments above. Professor Sadrizadeh reduces all these comments to self citation and links to Scopus. However, it appears that his student Mr. Behzadi, together with a group of colleagues from different universities, strengthened the citation record by giving inappropriate citations to each other. So, while the number of self-citations in Scopus is low, the total number of citations has been increased because of the group behaviour. Such a high number that his student Mr. Behzadi has more citations than Professor Sadrizadeh. Professor Sadrizadeh shouldn’t have normalised it.
4- Professor Sadrizadeh should look at the records on Pubpeer. He should condemn the unfair citation approach done by his student, presumably to get ahead of others, just as he has spoken out against the injustice done to him, and he should personally refer the matter to the ethics or integrity committee of his university.