From 2008 to 2019 professor Charles Lieber was the lead investigator of the Lieber Research Group at Harvard University, which focused broadly on science and technology at the nanoscale. Without informing and getting consent from Harvard University, he was appointed a “strategic scientist” at Wuhan University of Technology (WUT), and from 2012 to 2015, he became a contractual participant in China’s Thousand Talent Plan, one of the well-known recruitment schemes intended to recognize and recruit elites in order to boost China’s scientific innovation, economic growth, and national security.
Lieber received from China a salary of up to $50,000 per month, living allowances of up to $150,000, and he was provided with more than $1.5 million to set a research laboratory at WUT.
Throughout 2018 and 2019, Lieber did not tell the truth to federal authorities about his participation in the Thousand Talents Plan and his affiliation with WUT, the Justice Department reported.
