The need

Attorneys representing a 5th year Ph.D. candidate in immunology in her mediation with a university needed an expert in immunology to support her argument. The Ph.D. candidate alleged sex discrimination when a change in her advisor prompted her thesis committee to send a progress report which gave her a list and order of things that needed to be finished. She claimed this list was unreasonable to complete as some items were outside the scope of her thesis. As such, the ideal expert would need to understand the subject matter of her thesis, be able to evaluate her progress so far, and determine the feasibility of the newly requested list of deliverables.

Our approach

From conversations with the client, we understood that an expert that would know of the standards of a comparable school as the complainant’s would be necessary as different programs have different standards. Prior expert experience was not required.

The expert

We found an expert who was a Professor of Immunology at a comparable school and was acting Chief and Research Director for the Division of Infectious Diseases. Highly involved in graduate education, he was the Immunology Track Director for the Immunology program and had extensive experience in graduate education for Ph.D. students. He had served as a dissertation advisor for Ph.D. candidates in his lab and had participated in over 20 thesis research advisory committees as well as over 15 thesis defense examination committees. Finally, he had authored over 70 research publications and was a frequent speaker on the topic of immunology.