Hugo Rossi, the University of Utah mathematician who helped lead a vigorous campaign for a National Cold Fusion Institute, has resigned from the institute board of trustees.
Rossi, U. dean of the College of Science, last week called for a complete financial audit and scientific review of the institute and now says his membership on the five-man board would be a "conflict of interest.""It's hard (to call for the audit), but it's essential for us to do this," he told the Deseret News. "On the issue of scientific integrity, we are taking a beating and we have to do something to restore our health."
Rossi's dramatic switch in gears took many faculty members by surprise last week because of the professor's longtime support of fusion research at the U.
Shortly after electrochemists B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann stunned the scientific world with the announcement in March 1989 that they had produced a nuclear fusion reaction in a test tube at room temperature, Rossi was appointed director of the U.'s solid-state fusion research effort.
When the Legislature invested $5 million in fusion and the institute opened its doors, Rossi became its first director.
Even when he resigned his post with the institute in late November and returned to his job as dean of the College of Science, he remained a member of the institute's board of trustees. Other members are U. President Chase N. Peterson, U. Vice President James Brophy, institute director Fritz Will, and businessman Ian Cumming, a member of the State Board of Regents.
But last week after learning that a $500,000 "anonymous" donation to the institute actually came from the U. itself, Rossi and 22 science faculty members called for a financial audit and scientific review of the institute. Puzzling to some institute scientists is why Rossi announced the request to the press and not to the board of which he was then a member.
Now Rossi, at the request of Peterson, will recommend to the state advisory board Thursday how the scientific review should be conducted - and who should do it. He said he wants all reviewers to be from the U.
"We feel that issues are University of Utah issues and the purpose (of the review) is to make recommendations concerning future state funding (to the institute)," he said.
Rossi says it's essential that it be an "open review" - that all data and experiments be available to reviewers because "our recommendations will be based on what we learn."