By
Katia Riddle
A sizeable share of funding for science comes through philanthropy, which comes under little scrutiny. Jeffrey Epstein used this fact to cultivate scientists and launder his reputation, experts say.Hanna Barczyk for NPRhide caption
When the Epstein files were released earlier this year, Scott Aaronson was surprised to find his own name in them.
"This was something that I'd completely forgotten about," says Aaronson, "until I saw that I'm in the Epstein files like, 26 times."
Aaronson, a computer scientist, never met or associated with Jeffrey Epstein. He was working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010 when a proxy for Epsteinreached out to himabout potentially funding a research project.
At the time, Aaronson had never heard of Jeffrey Epstein, and he forwarded the query to a person he knew to be a good judge of character: his mom. "My mom sent an email that said, 'Be careful of getting sucked into this slime machine,'" recounts Aaronson.
"You don't care that much about money," she reminded him. "They can't buy you."
Epstein had no scientific training, but he positioned himself as a patron of the discipline andsought to cultivatescientists and researchers, going so far as to fund an exclusive 2006 conference on physics. Aaronson studies quantum computing and artificial intelligence. Epstein, he recalls, proposed funding a research project related to cryptography and nature.
Aaronson turned the offer down. He has at least one colleaguewho did getcaught up with Epstein.
By some estimates, philanthropy providesat least 20 percentof funding for science research at U.S. institutions. With little government oversight of this revenue stream, it's easy to imagine how someone like Jeffrey Epstein could use philanthropy to rehabilitate their reputation, say those who work inside this system.
"One of the really massive failings with philanthropy is that because it has so little transparency, it doesn't generate the scrutiny that it deserves as a significant form of power in a society," says Rob Reich, a professor at Stanford University who studies the impact of philanthropy on democracy.
There is no universal reporting system for these gifts, and legalrequirementsaround disclosures are limited. That leaves vetting up to institutions and individuals. But reputational risk is not necessarily the first thing that people think about when they receive interest in funding their work, says Jeffrey Flier, who was dean of Harvard Medical School from 2007 to 2016.
"Before the Epstein affair almost nobody would be thinking about that," says Flier, who estimates 20 percent of his job was fundraising while at Harvard. Though he never associated with Epstein, he says he's not surprised that some scientists engaged with a potential donor who praised their work and dangled money.
"The main reaction they're gonna have — understandably, given human nature and everything else — is, 'Wow, that's amazing, that would be great. I love that.'"
