I wonder if I could get some advice/help from someone who has been in the same situation.

I have left from my PhD institution and am now a postdoc. My old supervisor was terrible through the whole of my PhD and pretty much intimidated, belittled and I suppose bullied me.

He has tried to repeat one of the experiments that I did and cannot get the same results. When I was there he micromanaged me and even watched me acquire data. I did the experiments with the reagents that I had and these were the results that I got. Simple as that.

Now he has turned nasty once again. For a while I thought things were ok and we were maybe friends but this is obviously not the case.

I am not sure what to do about this. I am constantly anxious and not sleeping over what might happen next. They are generally angry and irrational and who knows what 'abuse' I will get, like so many times before.

I am not sure what to do. Shall I complain to the university about it? I know these things are futile on the whole which just makes me think that things will get worse.

For so long I was intimidated and belittled and now that I have left I do not want to have to put up with it any more. I did for so long fearing them and worrying about what backlash there might be.

Any advise would be great.

I hope my answer does not seem too bizarre. :-/

Given he is a bullying character, is there a risk his reruns of your experiments could be used as evidence to show your PhD results are not valid (i.e. implying dishonesty in the data on your part)?

If yes, I'd establish why he is rerunning the experiments as a case for fraud (probably not too likely) could lead to a PhD being revoked. That said, Universities don't like having the boat rocked even by a current member of staff and he could be digging his own hole by doing this.

If no, it's his problem and now you have your PhD it's history. Just ignore him, forget about it and press on with your post-doc at your new institution.

I was bullied (technical term harassment) in my second post-doc. Once I was gone, the situation was no longer my problem though there were ongoing problems with references circumstances allowed me to get around. He didn't bother me once I left, so it was an end to the situation for me.

Establish what he is trying to do and if it's no threat to your current status or PhD qualification (as I said unlikely), forget about it.

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

Yes in your post you don't actually say what the current bullying is. Are you being accused of scientific misconduct because your results are not replicable and if so, where is the accusation coming from? If they have been published and another scientist has challenged them, or the supervisor is trying to publish them and on checking has found a problem, then s/he does have to ask fairly robustly what's going on, as s/he is accountable for the work (especially if funded as part of a larger grant) done in that lab.

Thanks for the replies. The work that he is repeating was done after I submitted my PhD and was work I did for a publication a short time after I had finished. The work has not been published and he (or someone) had remade all the proteins and then not foudn the same as I did.

Througout the whole of my PHD he was horrible and I had to meet with departmental people for advise. I was not allowed to do anything off my own back and when I was writing I had to do it in my spare time and submit when they said to (even though I wanted an extra couple of days). He has not said anything about Science Misconduct but I know he is a vengful man and he is likely to go that way (know how he has been with people from past experiences).

One of the things that concerns me is that some of the experiments were really intricate and took me months to start to get it to work and get data. I have a feeling that after one attempt (if that).

I purified the proteins and did all the experiments on them. The results I got were what I reported. The problem is that they have all gone (and one has had to be re-made completely). Because he is an unpleasant character he does things in anger and people suffer, the worse thing being that people rally around to keep things quiet.

I am too intimidated to contact him for fear of what will say or even worse that it will make it worse (which is has done on the past). I am getting on well in my new position and the last thing I want is for him to contact my current boss.

A total nightmare. While I was doing my studies I kept quiet as I knew that it would make things so much worse if I did not. The sad thing was that I saw someone complain about this and I kept quiet, subconsciously I think to protect myself.

Hi,

If you went about your work in an honest manner, and can explain why you did what you did, then he can't do anything. Just have to be firm, assertive and believe in your explanation. Best of luck.

Yes, you should make an informal complain to the department, and see how it goes then only decide whether you should make an official complain.

I did that, and never regret.

Are you saying the work concerned has nothing to do with the PhD? Then that's one thing less to worry about and your PhD is not in danger for work outside its scope.

You did something for him, it worked. He tried to repeat, it didn't work. Keep hold of your data for scrutiny and have clear in your head how you might defend yourself if he does decide to claim scientific misconduct. You might want to seek informal legal advice (but no more than that for now) as to what actions to take if he does take things further.

I would therefore regard this as a niggle and if you no longer need him for anything, just say you want no further contact with him. I personally would just try to walk away, with no more than an informal complant at most for now. As I said, Universities don't like people who rock the boat too much and he might just dig his own hole.

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

So if I have understood correctly, the work he is questioning isn't related to your PhD and hasn't been published? If so, then a case of scientific misconduct really won't have much basis. However, I agree with Mackem_Beefy that it would be a good idea to prepare yourself in terms of how you would defend yourself against any such claim, i.e. do you have any lab books, records of what you did etc? Other than that, I would say just sit tight and ignore him, chances are he'll go away as it doesn't sound to me like he has much of a case to do anything with.