The Mindshift Conference: Nobel Laureates, an Academic Impostor, and Jeffrey Epstein

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In January 2011, several academics attended the “Mindshift Conference,” organized by Al Seckel (who has been accused of misrepresenting his credentials) and hosted by a financier and convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. The Nobel laureates include Professor Frances Arnold of Caltech and the late Murray Gell-Mann. Other attendees included former Caltech professor Christof Koch and Gerald Sussman of MIT, among other academics.

A recently released trove of files related to Jeffrey Epstein contains more details about this conference and emails from the attendees, including from Professor Arnold. In one of the emails, she wrote, “I want to thank you for hosting that amazing ‘conference’ last weekend… I’m sorry I did not get to interact with you very much, but I hope that you will visit us at Caltech sometime, where I can tell you more about laboratory evolution and all the crazy wonderful things we can make.”

In an email to the Tech, Professor Arnold stated, “Someone organized a conference where I met Epstein briefly. I never spoke or interacted with him before or after, other than the “thank you”. Other than the conference (where he spent little time, as you can see from my note), I had zero connection with the man. Of course, had I know[n] about him, I would have declined to even go to the conference, but I was completely unaware.”

However, the files contain earlier correspondence from June 2010. In an email to Seckel, Professor Arnold noted having spoken with Epstein before June 1 and remarked that she “could tell [Epstein] knows quite a bit about topics that are interesting to [her].” Additional emails indicate a conversation with her and Epstein the following Sunday.

In response to a follow-up request from the Tech for comment, Professor Arnold stated, “I frankly don’t remember any conversation with him before, or after, but that was a long time ago. The email seems to indicate there was one, so I guess that might be the case. Really, I don’t remember. I was raising three boys whose father had died and was rather busy at the time.” She suggested a clarification: “It was fifteen years ago, and I don’t recall interacting with him before or after, other than the ‘thank you.’”

An email Epstein forwarded to Seckel, purportedly from a woman named Susan, complained that the Mindshift Conference was “the worst meeting we have ever funded” and described attendees as “boring,” among other descriptions. Susan, according to Seckel, was just Epstein himself. The itinerary’s guest list also does not include anyone named Susan as an attendee.

Not every single name mentioned in the Department of Justice’s avalanche of files is guilty of participating in Epstein’s crimes. Authorities have not alleged that any of the academics whose names appear in the files engaged in wrongdoing connected to Epstein.

Another connection to the Institute is the relationship between Al Seckel and Caltech, which predates this conference, and involves Richard Feynman, former Caltech president David Baltimore, and questionable circumstances.

In July 2015, Mark Oppenheimer wrote a profile of Seckel for Tablet. He reported that Cornell’s alumni office said an “Alfred Paul Seckel” attended Cornell but never received a degree, and described a broader pattern of Seckel presenting himself as a Cornell graduate and a Caltech doctoral candidate when he was not. Seckel spent enough time around the Institute that some people assumed he was a grad student or postdoc. Among the important relationships he cultivated were with the late Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann, whom he would invite to his house for dinners and parties.

Oppenheimer wrote that after Feynman’s death, and as Gell-Mann “became less active, not to mention more skeptical of Seckel,” Seckel built relationships “with two younger Caltech professors, who seemed not to know that Seckel had a past on campus,” namely Christof Koch and Shinsuke Shimojo, who also attended his parties.

Koch and Shimojo eventually learned Seckel was not actually a credentialed scientist, and they cooled on him. Caltech’s then-president David Baltimore, “who, of course, had also partied at Seckel’s house,” was pulled into the situation, stating it was hard to tell whether Seckel was “nefarious or just unusual.” Shimojo stated, “I did receive multiple warnings from multiple directions, including a few external people and Caltech officials (Baltimore, Biology) and Koch.” In the end, Caltech decided not to have an official relationship with Seckel, and Shimojo and Koch warned Seckel not to use their names in any official contexts.

After Caltech cut him off, Seckel hosted the Mindshift Conference. Caltech-affiliated attendees (former or current) included Gell-Mann and Koch. Gerald Sussman of MIT stated, “I got invited, I said, ‘Gee that’s interesting, I know nothing about Mr. Epstein or anything else. But if a rich man wants to talk about science, why not just get on a plane and go?’”

Files indicate that in September 2010, Seckel offered to clean up Epstein’s digital presence and “cause all that crap to disappear” for $20K. He tried to game Google search results and revise Epstein’s Wikipedia entry by removing his mugshot and emphasizing material about his philanthropy. A few weeks before the Mindshift Conference, Epstein wrote to him, “Why don’t you stop and look, the results are marginal.”

In 2015, Seckel was reportedly found dead at the base of a cliff near his home in southern France, where he lived with his wife, Isabel Maxwell (Ghislaine Maxwell’s sister). Reports of his death surfaced not long after Mark Oppenheimer’s profile was published. The profile also described allegations that Seckel defrauded rare-book buyers and sellers, including claims that he failed to pay for or failed to deliver books.

Why might academics have been mixed up with him and ended up on Epstein’s island? Many other academics have now found themselves in the hot seat, having to explain their appearance in the files, and say they engaged with Epstein largely because he was wealthy and might help fund university budgets and research—even though those interactions occurred after Epstein had pleaded guilty to procuring prostitution from a minor.

For better or worse, private donations have been a long-standing pillar of the funding for colleges and universities. According to The New York Times, “some college presidents say they spend at least a quarter of their time fund-raising.” The dependence on private money can make schools more likely to seek or accept gifts from donors whose reputations are questionable.