A prominent UNC-Chapel Hill researcher has settled a dispute with the university, re-gaining her credentials and full salary while agreeing to retire at the end of the year.

Bonnie Yankaskas, a noted epidemiologist, had been demoted, her pay cut essentially in half, after a hacker infiltrated a computer server that she, as the principal investigator for a massive breast cancer study, oversaw.

Yankaskas has overseen the Carolina Mammography Registry, a federally funded project that compiles and analyzes mammogram data submitted by dozens of radiology offices across North Carolina to improve breast cancer screening.

The university held her responsible for the breach and first tried to fire her before later recommending the demotion from full to associate professor and the pay cut.

Under the terms of a settlement announced Friday, Yankaskas has regained her status as a full professor and her full salary of $175,000 has been restored.

She agreed to retire Dec. 31 of this year, according to a news release issued late Friday.

Under the terms of the agreement, the university will not comment on the settlement’s terms. Nor will Yankaskas, according to her attorney, Raymond Cotton.

Are the cases of Butch Davis and Bonnie Yankaskas similar? Were the two UNC-Chapel Hill employees, each quite well-regarded in their respective fields, treated equally?

Should they have been?

News & Observer Executive Editor John Drescher raises these points in a recent column comparing the way UNC-Chapel Hill Holden Thorp dealt with two high profile cases.

One: Butch Davis and the UNC football situation. The other: Bonnie Yankaskas, the epidemiologist harshly sanctioned by the university because a cancer research database she oversaw was infiltrated by a hacker.

As Drescher points out, there were plenty of similarities between the two cases, and yet, the results were quite different.

Read on.

In my column Saturday, I wrote there were more similarities than differences in two prominent personnel cases at UNC involving Butch Davis, the football coach, and Bonnie Yankaskas, a cancer researcher. Here are the similarities:

1. Each leader was well regarded by his or her employer.

2. A person who reported to the leader erred in a significant way, causing a major problem and embarrassment to UNC. (The football team had other problems related to players accepting benefits and academic misconduct.)

3. There is no evidence that either leader knew of wrongdoing.

4. Each leader said he or she was ultimately responsible. But each blamed the person who reported to him or her (associate head coach John Blake and the IT person assigned to the cancer-research project).

5. There were systemic problems that contributed to the problems.  For football: Agents are widespread and have gained great influence and access. For research: A faculty committee said principal investigators like Yankaskas didn't have the right relationship with technology-security specialists.

Chancellor Holden Thorp said there were significant differences in the cases:

1. There was no evidence Davis was negligent. My view: This is perhaps the key question in each case and the most difficult to resolve. Reasonable people can disagree as to whether Davis or Yankaskas were negligent or the degree to which each was negligent.

2. Former associate coach John Blake's acceptance of money from an agent was personal, while the problems in the cancer-research case were professional. My view: Blake's misdeed was professional. The N&O has presented strong evidence that Blake called the family of a top football prospect and then immediately called the agent. Another news outlet has reported that Blake recommended the agent to another prospect. Blake used his role as an assistant football coach to try to help the agent. 

3. The football investigation continues and the Yankaskas investigation is complete. "We don't have any evidence that Butch Davis was negligent," Thorp told me. "If facts of that kind emerge, we'll deal with them. People have been looking for a long time and haven't found them." --John Drescher

A story last week about UNC researcher Bonnie Yankaskas prompted a lot of questions from readers related to the notion that the university has "scapegoated" her - which is how at least one of her colleagues has characterized the situation.

As you may recall: Yankaskas is a nationally prominent epidemiologist who for the last 15 years has run the Carolina Mammography Registry, a federally funded research study that analyzes mammograms submitted by radiologists across North Carolina.

The database containing much of the data was hacked in 2007, an infiltration not discovered until 2009. As the project's principal investigator, Yankaskas was held responsible for the breach and punished for it. She was demoted and her salary was cut nearly in half.

Yankaskas has appealed the punishment, saying she should not be held responsible for data security since that's not her field of expertise.

My story last week led some readers to wonder whether anyone besides Yankaskas was punished for the gaffe, which compromised 114,000 social security numbers. (UNC says there's no evidence those numbers were copied or removed)

Here's what UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp had to say on the issue. He addressed it late last fall at a meeting with faculty.

"Dr. Yankaskas has not been scapegoated. Other members of her staff were also disciplined in conjunction with the security breach, consistent with their roles and responsibilities. Dr. Yankaskas had more responsibility than they did for the deplorable state of computer security in her project, so her supervisors recommended that she be dismissed. At the end of the day I concluded that a case for dismissal had not been met, but I agreed with the Hearings Committee that her neglect of duty warranted demotion and a pay cut."

The matter is now going to mediation.

At UNC-Chapel Hill, a cancer researcher held responsible for a security breach involving a computer service is fighting a demotion and pay cut.

Bonnie Yankaskas has spent 15 years running the Carolina Mammography Registry, a database of mammogram data used to better breast cancer screening.

Last summer, campus officials discovered a server holding much of that information had been breached. Yankaskas was blamed, her rank reduced from full to associate professor and her salary cut nearly in half.

She's not going without a fight, though. Yankaskas believes she's not responsible for the security breach and wants her job back.

Here's her story.