The chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department was charged with making false statements to the Defense Department

The chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department was charged with making false statements to the Defense Department when he was asked about his work in China.

Charles Lieber, 60, was charged on one count of making false, fictitious and fraudulent statements and will come before the federal court in Boston Tuesday afternoon, according to the Justice Department.

Lieber has received more than $15 million in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Defense (DOD) since 2008, according to court documents. Those grants mandate him to inform the government of any “significant foreign financial conflicts of interest,” like receiving money from a foreign government, according to the department’s release.

But officials allege that the professor served as a “Strategic Scientist” for the Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in Central China since 2011, without Harvard University’s knowledge. They also say that between 2012 and 2017, Lieber participated in China’s “Thousand Talents Plan,” in which the country recruits foreign experts to bring their talents to Chinese projects and rewards them for stealing “proprietary” information, according to the release.