It was the summer of 2020, and she couldn’t have scripted a better start as a new M.D.-Ph.D. student — at least until everything went so very wrong.
She’d just been admitted to Washington University in St. Louis. And for a young trainee fascinated with the complex crosstalk between the immune and nervous systems, she’d struck scientific gold — the chance to work in one of the world’s top neuro-immunology labs. But things quickly changed. Over the next several months, the student says a postdoctoral mentor coerced her into an unwanted sexual relationship and pressured her to keep it quiet.