Rachel Leingang | The Republic | azcentral.com

Lawrence Krauss, a world-renowned theoretical physicist who led Arizona State University's Origins Project for nearly a decade, will not lead the initiative any longer, he announced on Twitter Thursday.

Krauss was accused of sexual misconduct in a February Buzzfeed News story and placed on paid leave by the university in March while it conducted an investigation. The story included allegations of inappropriate comments and behavior from multiple women. Krauss has strongly denied the allegations.

Krauss founded the Origins Project and has been director since it began in 2009.

The project holds workshops and events focusing on the origins of the universe and life. The project's events have involved some of the world's most famous scientists, like Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins.

Krauss also is known for his work on the Doomsday Clock, a symbolic clock that inches closer to midnight as the threat of nuclear annihilation increases, and is an outspoken atheist.

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On Twitter Thursday, Krauss said ASU "decided not to renew my director appointment" when his five-year term was up this year.

"It has been a great privilege to create and lead the Project at ASU over the past decade," he wrote.

In subsequent replies on Twitter, he said he was still a professor at ASU "for the moment."

Krauss said his colleague Lindy Elkins-Tanton will be the new director. Elkins-Tanton is listed on ASU's website as the director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration.

"I am confident she will move it forward in new and exciting ways," he wrote.

In an email to The Republic on Friday Krauss said, "The process at ASU continues and I remain on paid leave and hope, if I’m treated fairly, to be fully exonerated once the process is over."

ASU confirmed in a statement that Krauss is no longer the project's director.

Krauss remains on administrative leave, the university said.

"It is the policy of the university not to comment on ongoing personnel matters," the school said.

Accusations against Krauss

The Buzzfeed News story detailed an account from a woman who met Krauss in 2006 at an event.

She told Buzzfeed News that Krauss was one of her "intellectual idols." He flirted with her at the event and made plans to meet up at his hotel's restaurant, she said.

He asked her to first come to his hotel room, where he tried to force himself on her, Buzzfeed News reported. She managed to leave the room.

The news outlet said the incident was just one of many allegations against Krauss, "including groping women, ogling and making sexist jokes to undergrads, and telling an employee at Arizona State University, where he is a tenured professor, that he was going to buy her birth control so she didn't inconvenience him with maternity leave."

Krauss said the encounter with the woman at the event was consensual.

In a lengthy statement posted publicly, Krauss called the article "libelous" and "absurd." He said the reporters ignored counterevidence and set up a false narrative of him and, by extension, the skeptical and atheist communities.

He acknowledged that his language and demeanor sometimes made people uncomfortable and said he could be brash.

Still, the Buzzfeed News story "effectively paints a false picture of me and my relationships with others through a mosaic constructed largely out of anonymous hearsay and a web of often vague innuendo," Krauss said at the time.

The Origins Project was set to celebrate its 10th anniversary at an event in Scottsdale in April, but the celebration was cancelled after the allegations against Krauss were publicized.

Republic reporter Anne Ryman contributed to this report.