Quite a few high-profile careers in higher education have been upended as of late amid questions of academic integrity. Marc Tessier-Lavigne, who had served as president of Stanford University for seven years, stepped down in 2023 after it was determined that he had co-authored several academic papers that contained manipulated data. The latest casualty is Claudine Gay, who resigned her presidency at Harvard after questions arose about her scholarship, in addition to her response to antisemitism on campus following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel by Hamas.
In the following Q&A, Roger J. Kreuz, a psychology professor who is working on a manuscript about the history and psychology of plagiarism, explains the nature and prevalence of plagiarism and the challenges associated with detecting it in the age of AI.
