UNC-Asheville whistleblower suit alleges improper COVID research, grant use

The University of North Carolina at Asheville faces a lawsuit alleging research misconduct and fraudulent use of grant funding within its North Carolina Center for Health & Wellness (NCCHW). A former research assistant, Aidan Settman, claims he was terminated in retaliation for exposing allegedly manipulated data in a COVID-19-era public health program.

Settman, a UNC Asheville graduate and current doctoral candidate, filed suit in February 2025 against the school and Emma Olson, the interim director of the NCCHW and Settman’s former supervisor. The core of Settman’s complaint centers on North Carolina’s whistleblower protection statute, which shields state employees from retaliation for reporting improper activities.

Settman claims he was protected under that statue and had an obligation to report the alleged misconduct he witnessed, but his status as a contractor at the time makes the law’s application in his case dubious.

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The NCCHW received substantial funding — totaling over $1.27 million — for its Student Health Ambassadors (SHA) program, in which it also collaborated with the Mountain Area Health Education Center. The funding included a $610,000 grant in July 2020 from the North Carolina Collaboratory, utilizing federal CARES Act COVID-19 relief funds. That grant was supplemented by $660,369 from the Dogwood Health Trust, a private foundation that focuses on health for western North Carolina residents.

The SHA program was built on paying students to work on campuses throughout western North Carolina — including Western Carolina University, Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, and Blue Ridge Community College — in an effort to mitigate viral spread, provide health education, and promote student mental health during the pandemic.

Settman was hired in September 2020 to conduct research. He was classified as a W-2 employee, until he voluntarily departed four months later. Parts of his research were used in 2022 by NCCHW to create an academic paper on the program’s findings. That paper failed to gain acceptance from the Journal of American College Health, a reputable, peer-reviewed bimonthly publication.

An email provided by Settman and reviewed by Carolina Journal included concerns from a reviewer at the journal that the paper made “exaggerated” claims on the results of the study, had numerous instances of missing information, and lacked scientific merit.

Settman alleges fraud

Rehired in September 2023 as an independent contractor to revise and resubmit the rejected paper, Settman soon uncovered what he described to Carolina Journal as “research misconduct” and “fraud” within the NCCHW’s operations.

Settman claims in the lawsuit that critical data — such as information on vaccination hesitancy — could not be located or produced by Olson and her colleagues, despite being cited in the paper. Furthermore, he asserts that data was actively manipulated to obscure negative findings, including combining student assessment answer choices to conceal unfavorable outcomes and omitting data related to assessments and campus impact to hide program failures.

Additionally, the complaint details alleged fabricated evidence, such as deceptive practices involving test administration dates and labels, with “pre-tests” being falsely identified to create an illusion of learning growth. Settman claims that assessment data was manipulated by combining partial cases or artificially inflating sample sizes. 

Settman also cited instances of alleged suppression of evidence that didn’t agree with the study’s conclusion. A document provided by Settman and reviewed by Carolina Journal showed contributors to the paper sought to quash data that showed that awareness of the program on campus actually decreased from the fall to spring semester — even though the overall claim was that the ambassadors’ presence on campus was significant.

Finally, Settman pointed to instances of “gift authorship,” where individuals with minimal or no contributions were credited as authors on the final paper, and that Olson was reluctant to critically review the program’s administration and had a desire to “just move forward” with publication despite known missing data.

Settman told Carolina Journal that the research methodology itself was a “stupid study,” overly reliant on “self-reported feelings” of confidence, with the program making “absolute nonsense” connections to reduced COVID rates. He also noted that grant reports falsely claimed research anonymity while collecting student IDs and emails, and that warnings of unreliability in data analysis were ignored.

Retaliation and legal recourse

Settman repeatedly raised his concerns with Olson, program manager Kol Gold-Leighton, and former director Amy Lanou between December 2023 and February 2024, according to the lawsuit. On March 14, 2024, he escalated these allegations of academic and research misconduct to John Dougherty, UNC Asheville’s general counsel and chief of staff.

Just four days later, on March 18, 2024, Olson terminated Settman’s contract, with Gold present, citing “condescending” and “belittling” conduct, according to the lawsuit.

But Settman asserts that this was a pretext, noting he had received positive performance reviews, including from Olson, just days before his termination. He also alleges that he was terminated without the written notice required by his contractor agreement, a practice he argues is more typical of how an “at-will” employee would be treated.

UNC Asheville has denied Settman’s claims. In a court document responding to the lawsuit, the school and Olson say they “have clean hands and have acted in good faith,” that the school did not take retaliatory action against him,” and that school staff never knowingly falsified data to grantors and peer-reviewed journal publishers.

Moreover, in a statement provided to Asheville Watchdog, Dogwood Health Trust spokesperson Erica Allison backed up UNC Asheville, saying the school provided “sufficient, synthesized reporting and documentation” to meet grant terms, and that Dogwood has “a positive working and funding relationship” with the school.

Settman’s case calls back to one from another UNC System institution, North Carolina State University. In the early 2000s, a tenured chemistry professor, Stefan Franzen, identified what he believed were significant flaws in a groundbreaking paper published by two university researchers, as reported by the News & Observer of Raleigh.

After Franzen’s concerns were dismissed by the researchers and his dean, Franzen filed a complaint with the university’s research integrity office. According to Franzen, that action resulted in a smear campaign that culminated in an accusation of grant fraud, leading to a federal investigation. Though Franzen was cleared of wrongdoing, the ordeal lasted a decade.

While the National Science Foundation eventually banned the two researchers from federal funding for data misrepresentation in 2015, and the journal Science retracted the paper a year later, NC State largely tried to distance itself from the controversy, downplaying its involvement.

Whistleblower protections and ongoing appeal

The case hinges on Settman’s argument that — despite his label as an independent contractor — his job duties, supervision, and continuous relationship with UNC Asheville meant he was, in fact, a state employee entitled to whistleblower protections.

Settman claims his work was vital to the program’s success and funding, as publishing the research was a grant condition. He also asserts that falsified data constitutes fraudulent activity, misleading grantors and the scientific community about the program’s efficacy. As a presumed state employee, he argues he had a legal duty under statutory law to report the alleged fraud. 

Settman’s termination, occurring shortly after his report to the general counsel, is presented as a direct and willful retaliatory act by Olson, acting as an agent of UNC Asheville, in violation of state statutes, the lawsuit alleges.

In May, a Buncombe County judge initially dismissed the lawsuit — ruling that his status as an independent contractor did not afford him state whistleblower protections. But Settman appealed this decision in June 2025, and on Feb. 26, he filed the opening brief in that appeal. The appeal process is still ongoing.

In an emailed statement to Carolina Journal, Eden Bloss, chief marketing officer for UNC Asheville, wrote, “Aidan Settman is a former independent contractor of UNC Asheville. The University denies the allegations made by Mr. Settman. On May 29, 2025 Superior Court Judge Allen Thornburg issued an order dismissing Settman’s claims with prejudice. The University’s position is that this is the correct outcome. Through counsel, Mr. Settman has filed notice of appeal in this matter. Beyond an intention to respond to any appeal of the judge’s dismissal, UNC Asheville does not wish to comment further.”

Reached by email, Jeff Warren, executive director of the NC Collaboratory, wrote, “The final report was in line with the grant ward’s slope. Further, Collaboratory’s entire COVID-related research portfolio has been subjected to numerous audits (both internal and external) with no significant findings, including any concerns related to the three UNCA projects (of which the SHAP was one).”

“UNC-Asheville whistleblower suit alleges improper COVID research, grant use” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.