Kamran Daneshjoo (in Persian: کامران دانشجو) (born 2 February 1956) is an Iranian university professor who is currently serving as Iran's minister of Science, Research, and Technology.

Education [edit]

His web-site claims he has a Bs.C. degree from Queen Mary College (UK) and a Ms.C. degree from Imperial College, after which at some point he was expelled from the UK and restricted from entering Schengen due to a prior attempt at committing arson at the Penguin Book Store in London. He obtained his PhD by "The Viva examination held at Amirkabir University of technology, Iran June 1989"^[1] His claim to having earned a PhD has been disputed in Persian language blogs;^[2] previously, his web-page mentioned the Manchester Imperial Institute of Science and Technology as the institute granting the Ph.D.^[3]

It was reported that when obtaining Majlis's vote of confidence, the parliament speaker Ali Larijani defended him, saying he obtained his certificate in Tehran after he was kicked out of a London college for "participating in a rally opposing" British writer Salman Rushdie.^[4]

It was also reported by the Mehr News Agency on August 30, 2009 that, following a probe into Daneshjoo's background during his ministerial nomination procedure, the chairman of the Education Committee of Iran's parliament, Ali Abbaspour-Tehrani announced: "He [Kamran Daneshjoo] does not have a PhD, neither from London's Imperial College nor from the Amirkabir University."

Career [edit]

Before being selected as Iran's minister of Science, Research, and Technology, Daneshjoo was the head of the headquarters for the Iranian presidential election, 2009.^[5] He is accused by opposition leaders of being one of the engineers of election fraud. Kamran Daneshjou is the co-author of an article published in the journal Engineering with Computers in 2009. In many places the text duplicates verbatim that of an earlier paper: "Ricochet of a tungsten heavy alloy long-rod projectile from deformable steel plates", published by South Korean scientists in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics in 2002.^[3]

Plagiarism [edit]

On September 22, 2009, Nature, the prominent British scientific journal reported that "large chunks of text, figures, and tables in a 2009 paper co-authored by Kamran Daneshjou, Iran's science minister, are identical to those of a 2002 paper published by South Korean researchers".^[3] On September 25, 2009, Springer, the publisher that Daneshjou's paper was submitted to, retracts paper by Iran's science minister.^[6] Similar plagiarism has been found in three other papers by Daneshjou.^[7] Iranian scientists said they intend to press for a plagiarism inquiry.^[8] Another paper for which he took credit has since been retracted by Engineering with Computers.^[9]

Gender segregation in universities [edit]

Daneshjou has also called for the segregation of university students based on gender in accordance with the "Islamic worldview".^[10]

Ideological cleansing of universities [edit]

Daneshjoo has stated that he intends to remove university professors and students who do not have a proven commitment to Islam and the Velayat-e faqih. He has also blamed much of the current post-election unrest in Iranian universities on "subversive" behavior by students and professors.^[11]

References [edit]

1. ^ http://www.iust.ac.ir/find-16.1458.873.en.html
2. ^ Persian language blogs
3. ^ ^{a b c} http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2009/09/exclusive_paper_authored_by_ir.html
4. ^ www.icana.ir
5. ^ http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=88786&sectionid=351020101
6. ^ Accusations of plagiarism against Daneshjoo
7. ^ Further accusations of plagiarism against Daneshjoo
8. ^ Plagiarism inquiry requested re Daneshjoo
9. ^ www.springerlink.com
10. ^ "Islamic worldview"
11. ^ www.iranhumanrights.org

Source [edit]

• Iran Human Rights Documentation Center Violent Aftermath: The 2009 Election and Suppression of Dissent in Iran (February 2010), New Haven, Connecticut.