C. Marcella Carollo

C. Marcella Carollo worked as a professional astronomer for 25 years between 1994 and 2019. Her scientific career was ended by the ETH Zürich who, following accusations that she had bullied students, made her the first Professor to be dismissed at ETH Zurich^[1] in the 165 years of its history. Carollo has maintained her innocence against these accusations,^[2] publicly commenting on her case in terms that indicate "academic mobbing".^[3] The dismissal was appealed unsuccessfully to the Swiss Federal Administrative Court.^[4]

Quick Facts Born, Nationality ...

C. Marcella Carollo
Born	Palermo, Italy
Nationality	Italian and Swiss
Alma mater	Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (PhD)
Known for	Galaxy formation and evolution Extragalactic astronomy
Spouse	Simon Lilly
Scientific career
Fields	Astronomy Astrophysics
Institutions	ETH Zürich Columbia University Johns Hopkins University Leiden University

Close

Carollo began her studies at the University of Palermo^[5] where she earned a laurea degree in physics in 1987, with a specialization in biophysics. She worked for more than four years outside of academia before starting a PhD in astrophysics at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where she graduated in 1994.

Carollo was awarded a European Community Prize Fellowship, which she held at Leiden University from 1994 to 1996. She held a Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship^[6] at Johns Hopkins University from 1997 to 1999. Carollo was appointed Assistant Professor in the Astronomy Department at Columbia University in 1999, a position she held until 2002. That year, she moved to ETH Zurich as an Associate Professor, in a dual appointment with her spouse Simon Lilly. She was promoted to Full Professor in 2007. She contributed as a member of the Science Oversight Committee to the development of the WFC3 camera^[7] which was installed on the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009. In 2012, she entered the Top Italian Scientist list from VIA Academy^[8] and in 2013 she was awarded the Winton Capital Research Prize.^[9] In 2018, she was identified as a Highly Cited Researcher ^[10] for her research work at ETH between 2006 and 2016 – one of only about 20 ETH scientists so recognized.

Carollo's contribution to astronomy is in the fields of extragalactic astronomy and specifically galaxy formation and evolution.^{[citation needed]} Her early work established the relation between the metallicity gradient and stellar mass in galactic spheroids, demonstrated the presence of dark matter halos beyond their half-light radii and was seminal in discovering and characterizing disk-like (pseudo) bulges and nuclear massive star clusters in disk galaxies like the Milky Way.^{[citation needed]} Later she and her ETH group worked on the role of galactic environment and progenitor bias in galaxy evolution, the growth and "quenching" of massive galaxies at high redshifts, and participated in the discovery and characterization of the most distant galaxies in the universe, in the heart of the reionization epoch.^{[citation needed]}

In December 2016, Professor Carollo informed one of her PhD students that she could no longer supervise her PhD, because of the lack of progress.^[11] The PhD student reached out to ETH Ombusdman Wilfred van Gunsteren, complaining that she was insufficiently supervised and had been bullied by Professor Carollo. In January 2017, the ETH Ombudsman as well as the student collected complaints (testimonials) about Carollo from a number of previous students and postdocs.^[12]

In August 2017, ETH Zurich dissolved its Institute for Astronomy.^[13] Marcella Carollo and her spouse Simon Lilly, until the dissolution the head of that Institute, were given a sabbatical leave. In October 2017, an article about the closure and the allegations against Carollo appeared in a Swiss newspaper^[13] and was also reported internationally.^[14]

Shortly afterwards, the ETH Zurich commissioned an Administrative Investigation from an external lawyer, Dr. Markus Rüssli, of the Zurich law firm Umbricht. His report was delivered to ETH in October 2018.^[15] ETH published this Rüssli report in April 2019. ^[16]

Meanwhile, on 17 January 2018, the ETH Zurich announced a second investigation against Carollo.^[17] This concerned accusations of scientific misconduct in the same testimonials. The ETH at this time suspended Carollo from her duties at the university.^[18]

A special committee was convened in accordance with the ETH Professors' Ordinance which gave with final recommendation that Prof. Carollo should not be dismissed. ETH published this special committee report in April 2019.^[19]

In March 2019 the President of ETH Zurich, not following the special committee recommendation and therefore not following ETH's own rules, submitted a request to the ETH Board to terminate the employment relationship with Professor Carollo.^[18][20] On July 15, 2019, the ETH Board agreed to this request and dismissed Carollo with six months notice.^[1]

Women professor colleagues complained about this decision such as Prof. Ursula Keller and Prof. Janet Hering, both former presidents of the ETH Women Professors Forum.^[21] Similar cases happened at the Max Planck Society and 145 women scientists signed an open letter to express their concern. ^[22]

The Carollo case has been widely covered in the German-language Swiss media.^[23][24] One Swiss online magazine, Republik,^[25] took sides with Carollo and criticized the ETH Zürich's handling of the case in a series of articles in 2019.^{[26][27][28][29]}

Carollo appealed her dismissal to the Federal Administrative Court. In its decision in 2022, the court upheld the dismissal. Although the contested termination was unjustified, it could not be qualified as abusive or gender-discriminatory according to Swiss Gender Equality Act. It also found dismissing Carollo without earlier warnings unfair, and it awarded Carollo a compensation of 8 months salary.^{[30] [31]}

In his farewell lecure Simon Lilly spoke for the first time publicly about his observation of the case. While his view is not expected to be neutral, the provided evidence is concerning. The ETH decided to remove the lecture from their video platform. In his lecture series about Mobbing and Hierarchies in Academia, Kenneth Westhues described the case as academic mobbing.^[32]