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The State Department opened an inquiry into the Harvard Cognitive Aesthetics Media Lab, after a former employee filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that the lab mishandled the admissions process for its visiting scholars program.
CAMLab, led and co-founded by History of Art and Architecture professor Eugene Y. Wang, supports multimedia art that explores “human consciousness” and hosts roughly two dozen visiting scholars annually, according to its website.
When the lab was created in 2018, it was known as the Chinese Arts Media Lab and aimed to display interactive tributes to Buddhist artwork in China. The lab has since rebranded its Harvard website to refer to itself as the Cognitive Aesthetics Media Lab.
Yiyi Liang, a former fellow at CAMLab, filed her complaint with the State Department in May, the same month the lab opted against renewing her contract. Liang said in her complaint that some visiting scholars had used CAMLab’s program to receive a U.S. visa, even though they spent considerable time off campus. Her complaint also alleged that the lab charged unreasonable fees of $16,000 for visiting scholars, she said.
Another core allegation, Liang said, was that CAMLab overworked her and had her focus on completing administrative tasks, instead of the scholarly research she had hoped to pursue at Harvard.
Liang declined to provide a copy of her complaint. A State Department spokesperson told the Boston Globe, which first reported her allegations against CAMLab, that the department “cannot comment on the specifics of ongoing compliance reviews, nor does it comment on individual complaints.”
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has also launched an administrative review into CAMLab’s management practices, according to FAS spokesperson James M. Chisholm.
Wang strongly denied Liang’s allegations. He said the program never overworked Liang, and that visiting scholar programs at Harvard and other universities charge similar administrative fees. The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, which houses international social science research at Harvard, charges a $10,000 annual fee for its visiting scholarship program.
“With limited staff support, it is reasonable that CAMLab, like many peer units at Harvard, charge administrative fees in order to enhance the quality of visiting scholars’ experience at Harvard,” Wang wrote in a statement.
“CAMLab is committed to full transparency and compliance with all Harvard and U.S. regulations,” he added.
Chisholm also wrote that the FAS does not prohibit faculty projects, like CAMLab, from requiring an administrative fee from students and scholars who participate in their programs.
In response to Liang’s claim that she focused almost exclusively on administrative work, Wang wrote in a statement that her activities at CAMLab were “directly related to her individual research and academic focus.” According to Wang, Liang worked on refining content for two book manuscripts under his direction, and conducted research on both textual and image sources.
In interviews, Liang also accused CAMLab of nepotism. She said the program partnered with Kaimu — a Chinese company with ties to the mother of CAMLab associate director Chenchen Lu, who co-founded the program with Wang.
Wang said Lu was a student fellow at Harvard and had no oversight over any of CAMLab’s financial or administrative decisions. The contract was administered through Harvard’s standard process for vendors, and neither Wang nor the lab have ever received any financial benefit from Kaimu, according to Wang.
Wang also said CAMLab only worked with Kaimu once during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the program needed to find a reliable vendor.
Liang also alleged that Wang’s wife, Jie Lu, played an undue role in admitting scholars for the program, even though she does not have a formal academic background. She claimed that Liu would conduct most of the interviews, holding short conversations and admitting the majority of applicants.
Wang said that while his wife helps with the screening process for applicants, he makes final decisions about which candidates ultimately get positions. Liu also works on a volunteer basis, Wang added.
“She doesn’t receive any money from the work she’s done. It’s purely out of her love of the CAMLab project,” Wang said.
The State Department’s inquiry comes as Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration have put Harvard’s ties with China under a microscope. The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party opened an investigation this spring that accused Harvard of maintaining partnerships with CCP-linked groups.
—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.
—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @VeronicaHPaulus.
