Professor Bi leading Native American scientist has died from Covid

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A woman spent years posing as a bisexual Native American scientist and university professor, claiming in recent months to be suffering persistent, months-long symptoms of COVID-19 until finally announcing that the fictitious persona she created had died from the disease.

The woman, BethAnn McLaughlin, a former assistant professor of neurology at Vanderbilt University, operated the Twitter account with the handle @Sciencing_Bi. She claimed to have contracted the coronavirus in April,

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In one tweet, @Sciencing_Bi said her employer, Arizona State University "forced me to teach 200 person lectures instead of closing the school in April." In another, she claimed the institution had reduced her salary by 15% while she was hospitalized, BuzzFeed News reported.

Things began to unravel on July 31, when McLaughlin sent a tweet from her own Twitter account (@McLNeuro), claiming the woman behind the @Sciencing_Bi account — which had frequently tweeted about issues like diversity in STEM and sexual harassment — had died from COVID-19.

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McLaughlin's posing as a Native American woman with Hopi ancestry has drawn ire from Native American groups due, in part, to COVID-19's disproportionate impact on Indigenous communities in the US, according to the Times.

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