Later, I accessed the files on his lab computer, spoke to some of my other students about him, and discovered some rather interesting things. First, the other students were sure that Balaji was living in the lab because either his landlord had evicted him, or Balaji thought there was no reason to pay for an apartment when he could live in the lab. Living in the lab would explain him sleeping in the student lounge and walking around the building in his underwear. He seemed to be using a file cabinet as a dresser.
I also discovered a Penn State letterhead template on his computer that listed the lab’s telephone number as my office number and had a contact email ermock@psu.edu. This email address turned out to be an alias to Balaji’s Penn State email. When I informed Penn State’s computer services that they needed to add some checks to prevent people from creating aliases to impersonate other people, they acted like it would be too much trouble to fix. I wonder if it’s still possible. The letterhead explained how Balaji had been hired as an intern at Ford for a summer. When I initially learned about this, I didn’t understand how they would hire him without contacting me. Now I wonder what kind of glowing recommendation letter they got and what they might think of “my” recommendation after working with Balaji for a summer.
I also discovered electronic discount brokerage statements that made me suspect Balaji had tried his hand at day trading. His day trading wouldn’t surprise me, considering his attitude that he was smarter than everyone. I wonder if day-trading losses were part of why he didn’t seem to have any money. I could certainly see his arrogance leading him to keep thinking he would eventually outsmart the market.
A few years later, I got an email from someone in India asking if Balaji had earned his Ph.D. as he claimed and if the Balaji Raghavan in the Daily Collegian article was the person I’d advised. After telling him that Balaji had not completed his Ph.D. and confirming he was the person that had forged my signature, I learned that Balaji was to wed this man’s sister in an arranged marriage. I’m not sure what ultimately happened, but I suspect the brother ended the arrangement after I told him of Balaji’s generally strange behavior beyond the signature forgeries and the lies about his degree.
A couple of years after that, I got an email from a professor in France wondering about Balaji and his history with me and Penn State. He had applied for a research position at a university there, and I told the professor the story. I’m not sure what became of that; however, his Google Scholar page claims he has a Ph.D. and is an associate professor at INSA de Rennes in France. A seminar announcement confirms that he eventually got a Ph.D. from a university in France and is a “tenured Associate Professor of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at the (French) National Insititute of Applied Science.” Although it claims he’s held this position since 2013, which cannot be correct.
To give you one last anecdote into Balaji’s distorted thinking, the very last thing he asked me was to write him a recommendation letter.