The highlighted statements are the only ones we recognize having made during thE

course of the interviews.

Yet, the DGS ascribes the entirety of the comments to 'at least 4 out of 5' students.
Mukund Vengalatorre Student Interviews Summary

The Interviews

Over the course of 1.5 weeks in mid July, t interviewed the following five advanced students
who worked in Prof. Mukund Vengalatorre's group:

(currently completing her Cornell PhD work at ); Paul

McEuen was also present at this, Interview
Srivatsan Chakram
Kristina Colladay (M. Eng. student In A&EP, currently working on Ph.D.)
Collin Reynolds (completed Masters at Cornell and transferred to Boulder PhD program)
Yogesh Patti

All interviews followed a set pattern. I first introduced the process, noting that
1) I was following up on the student letters for Prof. Vengalatorre to help clarify the situation in
his group,
2) I was not on anyone's side in this process (students or Prof. Vengalatorre), my prerogative
was to help bring some clarity to the situation, and if I asked what might seem like leading
questions in either direction, my goal was to get clarification on a point,
3) I would gather all the responses and produce a summary document for the Physics Dept,
and that Prof. Vengalatorre would have a chance to see and respond to the document,
4) I would, to the best of my ability, keep all direct references to the Interview content
anonymous in the summary. The exception was the allegation from
regarding the power supply, which Prof. Vengalatorre is aware of in any case.

The questiOns themselves had been determined by the tenure review committee in consultation
with the Dept. Chair and the DGS In response to the content of the student letters.
1) Are you aware of any instances of physical or verbal actions by Prof. Vengalatorre that you
consider disrespectful or unprofessional, with you or other students, beyond what you listed
in your letter? Follow-up question If necessary: Were these Isolated Incidents or a common
occurrence?
2) (Asked only to relevant students) In your statement at the time of the 3 year review, you did
not voice the concerns that you In your letter. Looking back at that time did you have
indications of the same Issues? Did your interactions with Prof. Vengalatorre get markedly
worse after writing the letter in 2011?
3) (Asked only to relevant students) Do think that significant changes have been made in his
management style and graduate student relations in the past 12 months? Are these for the
better, neutral, or for the worse?
4) (Asked of You said in your Jetter that Prof. Vengalatorre threw a power supply at
you. Can you give more details on this? Did he throw it at you, or, say, at a wall? Do you
think he was expressing frustration or did he intend to hurt you? Did anyone else witness
this (or similar) actions?

To ensure I had not misinterpreted any responses, I either read my notes back to the students
as we went along {10"..al interviews), or I sent the student a copy of my notes from the interview
for review (phone interviews). All Students agreed that the final versions were accurate.

--...
I
Summary of findings
The personal experiences of the five students as members of Prof. Vengalatorre's group
members ranged from very positive to very negative. There were, however, key features that
recurred across the preponderance of interviews (in at least 4 of the 5). On the more negative
side:
communication was poor between Prof. Vengalatorre and his students for much of the period
under question. Issues, from the student perspective, included i) lack of clarity when a
proposed approach was just a suggestion or was a place where follow-through was abscilutely
expected, ii) it was not always clear that a seemingly minute detail was actually crucial. One
of the students remaining in the group strongly expressed the sentiment that commu!'lication
had improved considerably over the past year, with Prof. Vengalatorre taking the initiative to
make sure the students understood what he expected.
students were moved around from one experiment to another, with Prof. Vengalatorre taking
over the work that they had been doing. Many of the students felt undermined In the process,
and felt that it made it difficult for them to take ownership of an experiment and gain the
necessary experience to be efficient with it.
criticisms by Prof. Vengalatorre were "harsh", "unvarnished". Comments along the lines of
"How could you not know X?" were common. The students' experiences of these comments
varied considerably. The more positive students felt that the criticisms were justified and
came from a place of Prof. Vengalatorre wanting the student to succeed. The more negative
students experienced the criticisms as belittling and unprofessional.
Prof. Vengalatorre often delivered criticisms with a raised voice, though again the students
reported experiences varied markedly. The more positive students felt that Prof. Vengalatorre
was annoyed or frustrated with the situation, and delivered a criticism with a raised voice as a
result, but they did not feel that Prof. Vengalatorre was angry, yelling at them, or otherwise
acting unprofessionally. The most negative students experienced anger and felt that Prof.
Vengalatorre yelled at them and the other students regularly. One student was somewhat in
the middle, stating that on only one occasion did that student feel that Prof. Vengalatorre was
clearly yelling (at another student). My notes summarized the incident as "[Prof. Vengalattore]
was in his lab yelling at X for over an hour or so, loud enough for you to hear down the
hallway" . The student felt that the tone was clearly beyond a raised, frustrated voice that
might be misinterpreted as yelling." That student did feel that Prof. Vengalatorre often scolded
the graduate students. I should note that X stated that Prof. Vengalatorre never yelled in
anger when asked a question. (X's Interview occurred first in the process, so this incident was
not explored in the interview.)
On the positive side:
the graduate students interviewed felt that Prof. Vengalatorre did an excellent job mentoring
the undergraduates in the lab, treating them with much patience
they also felt that Prof. Vengalatorre was an excellent experimentalist doing interesting
research; those who felt negative did so because of their experience of the group dynamic.

A couple of points struck me in my discussions:

Several students expressed frustration regarding an apparent lack of respect for the amount
of work put in on the experiments, on the one hand working regular1y until early AM hours
during the week and aftern0ons plus evenings on the weekend; on the other hand feeling
continuously criticized about not working hard enough.
One of the remaining students, on the other hand, expressed feeling anger and frustration that
the group character and Prof. Vengalatorre had been seriously misrepresented by another

--. . .
 student or students, to the detriment of the group overall and his own personal research now
because there were insufficient hands on deck.

The students related disparate experiences when posing questions to Prof. Vengalatorre. Some
students felt that Prof. Vengalatorre welcomed questions, that he iiked being asked for
clarifications and direction. Other students felt that their questions were met with derision and
ridicule.

I specifically questioned some of the students regarding Prof. Vengalatorre's decision.not to

attend a conference with the group. The students' letters left a very negative in my
reading: I came away thinking that Prof. Vengalatorre had chastised the students before the
conference, expressing the sentiment that he had chosen not to go because he was
embarrassed by the group's lack of progress. I received a very different impression from the
interviews.
while students had been expecting him to attend the conference and were surprised when he
did not, Prof. Vengalatorre made no comment, derogatory or explanatory, about that decision
to the group. He simply didn't go.
one student had explored the issue further and commented that Prof. Vengalatorre was
following the practice of other senior members In his field. He had presented their most recent
results at an earlier review panel. Because there were no new resuJts since then, he related
to the student that there was no "value added" to the field for him to be present as the
principal investigator. The student related that many Pis from other efforts were indeed not in
attendance at the conference.
The sense of chastisement discussed in the letters appears to stem from an incident at a group
meeting just after the conference. The students had presented a poster that was vert well
received, garnering positive comments along the lines of "wow, why haven't you totally taken
over the field yet?". A student said that when those comments were relayed to Prof.
Vengalatorre, he responded along the lines "Well, why haven't you put in the time needed for us
to take over?". The group overall took his response as a serious chastisement.

Prof. McEuen and I followed up with on the power supply incident that she
related. First of all, she states that there were no other witnesses to the incident In our phone
conservation, she Immediately put the Incident in a broader context where she states that Prof.
Vengalatorre would Yent frustration by whacking computer screens, which she would joke about.
In this particular instance, stated that she and Prof. Vengalatorre had a disagreement
about whether or not to change a particular power supply in one of the experiments. She
describes Prof. Vengalatorre, in frustration, grabbing one of the supplies in question from a
shelf, throwing it with a motion similar to a two-handed pass from the chest with a basketball,
and having it land roughly six inches from her feet.

When first came to my office as DGS to state that she was leaving Prof. Vengalatorre's
group and to explore her options, she did state that Prof. Vengalatorre had thrown a power
supply, and that the incident had precipitated her final decision.to leave. In our discussion at the
time, I had no impression that felt that Prof. Vengalatorre had thrown the power supply
"at her", that is, with an intent to hit her with the supply. My impression was that incident was,
for her; the iast straw" in a long history of what she experienced as angry interactions with Prof.
Vengalatorre. If the scenario is accurate, then here is my assessment While Prof.
Vengalatorre in this situation acted poorly and should have kept his frustrations in check, there

--. .
is no indication that he acted with malice or with intent to strike with the power supply.
Clearly, though, it was an incident that left shaken.

The student letters for the third year review of Prof. Vengalatorre were uniformly enthusiastic, in
marked contrast to some of the letters for the tenure ieview. There were two main points that
students brought up related to this change. First, the group dynamic was.initially OK with
experiments going well. Key undergraduates departed circa 2012. The students relayed that
Prof. Vengalatorre expected the graduate students in the group at that time to be making much
faster progress, that his frustration level increased, and that scoldings increased and the group
dynamic deteriorated as everyone was husUing to make the conference season. Another
student related that over that same period from 2011 through 2012 their own perception
changed from one of "I am being scolded for personal shortcomings" to "everyone is being
scolded, even though they are making incredible contributions" (my paraphrasing). A common
thread appears to be that stress levels rose and the group dynamic reached a low point,
perhaps precipitated by the departure of key undergraduates.

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