Two UH physics professors have been indicted on a count of conspiracy, seven counts of making false statement and 21 counts of wire fraud after they allegedly lied to receive more than $1 million in federal research grants for their company, according to the Houston Chronicle.
David Starikov and Adelhak Bensaoula, who started a business named Integrated Micro Sensors Inc., are accused of fabricating documentation and making false claims during the application and proposal process for several federal grants from the Small Business Innovation Research Program.
The grants and contracts awarded included funding from NASA, the Department of Energy, the United States Air Force and the National Science Foundation according to the Houston Chronicle.
Both professors hold Ph.D. in physics and have been at UH for over 15 years. Currently, Starikov and Bensaoula work in the Nitride Materials and Devices Lab at the Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center on campus, where Bensaoula is the lead professor.
The professors appeared before a judge after conceding to federal authorities Monday morning. Bensaoula pleaded not guilty while Starikov is expected to submit a plea Friday, according to the Houston Chronicle.
If they are convicted, they face up to five years in prison for the conspiracy charge, up to five years for each conviction of making false statements, up to 20 years for each conviction of wire fraud, as well as a $250,000 fine with each charge.
UH is not a target of the investigation, and released a statement Monday pledging full cooperation with the US Attorney’s Office.
“The University of Houston is committed to maintaining a research environment that promotes attention to the highest ethical standards for all sponsored and non-sponsored research … if allegations are proven to be true, the University also has suffered fraud and has been victimized in this incident,” the statement read.
Well, that’s Tier One for you…
kinda, since tier one is basically manipulation for funding.
That’s exactly what it feels like!
it’s exactly what it is, as far as i can tell. despite tier one being chanted non-stop, i suspect not even 1/100 students have any idea what it means.
i guess the school realizes that they can either cheer for more money (albeit indirectly – in a way that equates this request with the school being good) or find a way to do less/smarter spending. and they surely don’t want to reduce their money/power or admit they might not be spending in the smartest ways, as it is clear they are run by Public Relations/business professionals and not honest people or people interested in education.
can you even imagine khator saying she/the school made some big mistake and they’re going to change things (without some kind of massive uprising) to make the school better?
i can’t, but it’s still easier to imagine that than the school Not making tons of mistakes- since i know they are, as nearly any entity with lots of power and little accountability/oversight is wont to do.
look at Khator’s history at USF for starters – half a billion in debt last i checked, with 9 shiny new buildings brought along by Khator and Carlucci (both sent here together to do the same at UH) in an era when online education should be/kind of is coming to fruition and reducing the need for traditional B&M schooling.
sorry for the long rant, but i looked at your Disqus and i think you can handle it.
Brian, it’s quite alright. Don’t apologize for what you said. I find it very true that just about nobody on campus knows what “tier one” truly means. I have a cynical view on it, especially whenever it’s applied to UH.
I like to make fun of the Tier One business so much that I have a cartoon that’s put in the opinion section online (It’s called “Tier One”, so descriptive right?). You might get a kick out of it! I haven’t done much lately due to medical issues but I’m getting back into the full swing of things.
I think that I might do my next “Tier One” cartoon about all about all these fancy new buildings that they are putting up but they aren’t doing anything about economy parking. I know that, that new garage isn’t going to help. We need more economy parking lots because people can’t afford the now $463 garage parking for the year. I’m so broke that I don’t even have the privilege to own a car. So I have to live on campus! The rates are ridiculous! Of course I live in the cheapest dorm, Moody. And even that kills me in expenses! I thought that UH was supposed to be affordable. What’s sad is that a lot of my friends that I have made here, they are under the age of 24 and live on their own and support themselves and themselves only. They barely get any financial aid because they aren’t even considered for “independent status” So a lot of them had to quit school for now and wait until they are 24 for them to get aid. It’s crazy!
Sorry about my rant, but you know how that goes 😛
do you have a link to the cartoon? i’d try to search for it, but just about anything posted on this site has ‘tier one’ somewhere in it.
wow @463 to park in the garage. to be honest, i have just been parking without a permit for the past few months. i have only had one warning. the parking patrol must all be in the garages making sure those precious spaces aren’t violated.
there are some decent places close to campus that are a lot cheaper to live in – like near Telephone Rd – and you can actually have a kitchen to cook healthy food/save money. and no dorm boss telling you what to do. the area might look a little rough, but it’s not that bad in my experience. i paid 400$ per month at a place about a mile from school.
it’s sad that so many people have to struggle so hard to get an education that could mostly be replaced at an exponentially lower cost through the internet. i’m sure the internet is actually a Better source for education for many majors.
i’m a journalism major (stupid i know) and, thanks to the net, i finally have an opportunity to take an investigative reporting course (since the school didn’t actually offer one for years, although they promoted one) through a MOOC at UT for free.
Here’s one of them,
https://thedailycougar.com/2013/09/28/tier-one-oh-broken-outlets-shocking/
I have many others of course. I attached one that wasn’t published.
I guess that you could search my name “Callie Parrish” in the search bar. My other stuff will come up though, I do articles for Opinion along with the “Tier One” strip for Opinion and another strip for the Comics section called “Crazy Callie”. Recently I have begun to draw the buildings on campus as well. You’re right though, “tier one” is everywhere lol. But My “Tier One” cartoons should pop up if you search for my name. “Crazy Callie” is all about frustrations in college and it’s more cutesy. “Tier One” is more about frustrations at UH and is very sarcastic. I hope you enjoy the one in the link, it’s about the outlets at the library. The one I attached is all about financial aid (actually it’s the first cartoon that I made that featured the main character for “Tier One”). I made that one before I decided to make “Tier One”. Enjoy!
And yup! The rate for garage parking has increased to that much! I don’t blame you for parking without a permit. I’d do the same thing if I had a car!
I’d live off campus if I could. I have a fear of riding buses though. I used to attend UT-Austin until I fell ill and had to come home. I had some very bad things happen to me while I rode the city buses so as a result I don’t step foot on a bus. I just walk to get around. $400 a month isn’t bad though!
I can see most classes being taught online but some courses would be very hard to take online. I’m a senior mathematics/fine arts double-degree student. The math classes I take, I can’t imagine them being taught online. I’m not all that great with math so I need the lecture and all the office hours that I can get! The “core” classes should be online though. With my arts, that would be difficult to do for an online class but art history could be done online and that wouldn’t be a problem. More classes should be offered online though. It just depends on the type of class. Online classes would reach more people. Because not everyone can drive up to UH or any other school for that matter.
Some students have families and other obligations to be met. The school does need to be more flexible with these students. My sister got her BFA in Graphics Design at Lamar University but she couldn’t find a job in her degree field and then life happened and she had a child. Getting a job in the art world is pretty much impossible. She realizes this now. So now she is going back to school to become an engineer so that she can support her family. She works full-time and takes mainly online classes. I see how tired she is and it breaks my heart to see that a class that she needs, she can’t take all because it’s face-to-face and because it’s during the time that she works. She lives pay-check to pay-check. She can’t afford to quit her job. Her husband’s checks alone can’t pay all of their rent. I feel for her.
There’s nothing wrong with being a journalism major. I actually considered being one but I’m a horrible editor so I decided against it! What I have learned from working for the paper is that any editor can write but not everyone that can write can be an editor. So, I know my place on the totem pole!
What’s MOOC? I am rather curious! This is news to me! I used to do cartoons and illustrations for a brief period of time for UT’s paper, “The Daily Texan” But I haven’t kept up with what’s been going on their neck of the woods.
your comics look good! i never really got into them, but if more comics made fun of the school i’m sure i would. i especially like the UH Prez car throwing money out the window. a scene that often comes to mind when i think of her is her telling 15 or 20 poor students that they can’t have a free ride at UH because she needs to make nearly a million dollars a year because her job is so hard. or 100 students that they can’t have a free education because we need to put in new walkways and lights at the art building, so people might want to hang out there more? or because the school is all about image/form instead of substance, and they want to win people over with walking tours instead of their list of students who went on to do great things because of their education at UH (which i believe is close to Zero) rather than those who did big things because they dropped out of UH (wordpress creator, master p, bill hicks, etc.)
i hate the bus too – 1 mile is close enough to walk or ride a bike though. the little area between telephone rd and the gulf fwy really isn’t that bad.
i have to severely disagree @ nothing wrong with being a journalism major. nearly all papers are funded by the schools, and journalism students report pretty much only on the school in the paper (the reporting class subsidizes the News section so students pay to write instead of getting paid, which is pretty much the story of journalism education as a whole – at least until recently when the court said you can’t abuse interns , which pretty much ensures they are learning public relations.
what do you plan on doing with math/arts? are you into data visualization?
oops, hit enter on accident.
**(the reporting class subsidizes the News section so students pay to write instead of getting paid, which is pretty much the story of journalism education as a whole – at least untilrecently when the court said you can’t abuse interns quite so much)**
and MOOCs are Massive Open Online Courses – http://www.coursera.org is the main site for them. i actually tried to write about them for the student paper before they were known as MOOCs -about 3 years ago. i interviewed the guy who kind of started the online open education movement and got a quote from the 8th most cited person in academia (chomsky) – which was too much for my editors and lead to my downfall.
I know what you mean these new financial aid rules are oppressing the young. At this point people need to get married or have kids in order to get financial aid.
Khator’s husband works at UH too. Even more important, look into the contracts for construction for the projects and you will find more interesting activities.
care to be a little more specific? i’ve looked at some of their contracts and checked BoardEx a bit, but nothing damning.
Its not that easy. Look deeper. Many corps, but at least look at the corp that has a name similar to a cereal company.
haha ok deepthroat. if you can tell me why you can’t just email me. do i need to get PGP?
Tier 1 is overrated. Networking, intelligence, and know-how are more important.