WASHINGTON (AP) – An Army statistician whose research informed battlefield treatment decisions was quietly forced to resign in January after admitting she did not earn the doctoral degree she had been claiming.
Inquiries by The Associated Press revealed that not only did she deceive the Army about her Ph.D., but she didn’t earn the master’s degree on her resume either, something Army officials said they had not realized.
Managers at the Army Institute of Surgical Research in San Antonio initially rebuffed the whistleblower who tried to tell them about the degree fraud, according to emails obtained by the AP. But the statistician, Amy N. Apodaca, ultimately quit in January after her bosses confronted her, the Army said in a statement.
Apodaca held a secret-level security clearance, officials said. The case raises questions about how she was able to pass a background check, and about the vetting procedures at the Institute of Surgical Research, the Army’s leading laboratory for improving the care of combat casualties. Some of Apodaca’s supervisors there endorsed her qualifications on LinkedIn, the workplace networking site.
Apodaca worked as a contract employee at the surgical institute from 2007 to 2008 and from 2010 through most of January. She is currently living in Glasgow, Scotland, according to her Facebook page, and did not respond to requests for comment.