Now that Charles Lieber has been arrested, everyone has questions about his involvement in China's Thousand Talents Program — perhaps no one more than Lieber himself.
On an April evening last year, a group of chemists from around the world gathered for dinner at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Mass. They had been beckoned by the Harvard University Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, which was hosting a special one-day event called the CML Symposium. The title was an homage to the man being honored: Charles M. Lieber, the chair of the department, a celebrated mentor, and a giant in the field of nanotechnology.
The occasion was Lieber’s 60th birthday. Since becoming a professor of chemistry at Harvard in 1991, at just 32 years old, Lieber had taught more than 120 PhD students and postdocs through his eponymous research group. Throughout the morning and afternoon of the symposium, many of them had given presentations on their current research, often describing Lieber’s enduring influence on their work. The dinner was meant to be the culmination of the event: a chance for Lieber’s friends, colleagues, and former students to toas
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