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chromas (from IRC) writes:

This Ivy League food scientist was a media darling. He just submitted his resignation, the school says.

A Cornell professor whose buzzy and accessible food studies made him a media darling has submitted his resignation, the school said Thursday, a dramatic fall for a scholar whose work increasingly came under question in recent years. The university said in a statement that a year-long review found that Brian Wansink "committed academic misconduct in his research and scholarship, including misreporting of research data, problematic statistical techniques, failure to properly document and preserve research results, and inappropriate authorship."

Wansink, a marketing professor at Cornell's business college who was the director of the university's Food and Brand Lab, will retire at the end of the academic year, the school said. The move follows the recent retraction of six of Wansink's papers by the American Medical Association's JAMA Network, including those about how serving bowl size affected food consumption, how fasting changed people's food preferences and how action-packed television programs increased food intake.

Wansink emailed The Washington Post on Thursday a news release of his retirement, which included statements attributed to a university trustee saying that "Cornell and Professor Wansink mutually have decided that Professor Wansink's research approach and goals differ from the academic expectations of Cornell University, and they have decided to part ways accordingly." Wansink said he is leaving his position June 30, 2019.

For years, Wansink enjoyed a level of prominence that many academics would strive for, his work spawning countless news stories. He published a study showing that people who ate from "bottomless" bowls of soup continue to eat as their bowls are refilled, as a parable about the potential health effects of large portion sizes. Another, with the title "Bad popcorn in big buckets," similarly warned about the perils of presenting food in big quantities, according to Vox.

Also at Science Magazine, Ars Technica, CNN, and Retraction Watch.

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