LOS ANGELES — He was seeking a $500,000 donation from Jeffrey Epstein to boost research into how sound — like lullabies or a mother’s voice — could reduce pain, stress and heart rates among premature babies hospitalized in neonatal intensive care.

Dr. Mark Tramo, an adjunct professor of neurology at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, ultimately received only a fraction of what he wanted from Epstein before the convicted sex offender died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

But after his name surfaced hundreds of times in emails contained in a trove of recently released Justice Department documents — among them a 2007 email in which the professor expressed support to Epstein amid prostitution charges — Tramo has faced backlash, including a petition with thousands of signatures calling for his firing. UCLA scrubbed his profile from a directory of faculty experts.

When a link to his class’s Zoom meeting was posted on Reddit this month, he canceled the session. “Fire Mark Tramo,” said a sign during a small protest last week outside the geology building where Tramo’s class is typically held.

“I wish I never had anything to do with him,” said Tramo, who researches the connection between neuroscience and music. “I never visited his island, never flew on his planes, and never saw him with young girls... I have been subjected to harassment, false accusations and threats via email, telephone and fax.”

Broad academic fallout

The Justice Department’s release of millions of pages of Epstein files last month sent shock waves across the globe. It also jolted higher education institutions, putting a spotlight on how the quest for research funding by professors entangled them with Epstein during and after the period from 2006 to 2008 when he first faced a charge in Florida for a sex crime involving a minor and pleaded guilty.

Emails between Epstein and dozens of scholars, Tramo among them, show how professors aggressively pursued donations in the hopes of getting a slice of the financier’s estimated $600 million. They shared conference invites and articles on subjects Epstein took a liking to, such as mathematics, theoretical physics, psychology, evolutionary biology and brain science. They asked him to join calls, Zooms and meals and at times tolerated or ignored Epstein’s sexual comments about female students.

A Chapman University spokesman said it is “looking into” the emails of John “Jack” Horner, a paleontologist whose exchanges in the federal documents show he visited Epstein’s New Mexico ranch. The University of Arizona canceled an annual “science of consciousness” conference funded by Epstein cash. A Yale computer science professor will not teach classes while the university investigates his conduct after he sent Epstein an email describing an undergraduate as a “good-looking blonde” while recommending her for a job.

At UCLA, the fallout over Tramo’s communication with Epstein has has not reached the level it has at those universities. Tramo has not been charged with a crime and remains employed by UCLA. He’s listed on another university web page directory for “Integrative Biology and Physiology” as an associate adjunct professor.

Until last week, the UCLA Newsroom maintained a page highlighting Tramo as an expert in “music and medicine,” according to the web archive WayBackMachine. It now turns up a broken link.

A UCLA spokesperson declined to comment on Tramo, who has worked on campus since 2010 and previously was at Harvard. He also directs the independent Institute for Music and Brain Science.

The emails disclosed show that Tramo corresponded with Epstein or his assistant from roughly 2006 to 2018. Tramo’s correspondence largely is focused on neuroscience and music research. Epstein gave at least $125,000 to Tramo’s institute. Dozens of messages also focus on medical advice Tramo said Epstein sought regarding a spinal injury.

Hundreds of Tramo’s emails are ones in which Epstein or his assistant were blind copied. He frequently asked for phone calls with Epstein to “kibbitz” and would send him music-and-brain science “homework.”

Backlash centers on three exchanges

The UCLA protests focus on three of Tromo’s email chains.

In one 2007 message— part of a collection Bloomberg News obtained last September — Tramo offered support to Epstein as he faced charges of solicitation of prostitution, including one involving a 14-year-old.

“I read the newspapers early this morning - coverage re: Palm Beach - so I’m (sorta) glad it took me this long to get around to it (three grant applications worth!),” Tramo, then at Harvard, wrote to Epstein’s assistant. The email included an attached letter thanking Epstein for a $25,000 donation to the Institute for Music and Brain Science.

“Please remind him that boys from The Bronx (even if they end up at Harvard) have long memories, know all about cops, and stay true to their friends through thick and thin (no less peccadilloes).”

In an interview, Tramo said he was unaware at the time that Epstein was accused of a sex crime involving a minor.

“All I knew was that this 50-something-year-old bachelor/billionaire/philanthropist pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution... Nothing about minors. Nothing about statutory rape,” Tramo said.

Epstein, who pleaded guilty to the charges June 30, 2008, was sentenced to 18 months in a Palm Beach, Fla., prison. He served 13 months, mostly under a work release program that allowed him to leave for 12 hours a day on all but one day of the week.

On March 7, 2010, Tramo forwarded Epstein messages from two female students — one at UCLA and the other at Harvard — who had written Tramo expressing interest in research opportunities through his institute. The next day, Epstein replied, “are either of these cute.”

Tramo responded, “we’ll see! (you’re terrible!).”

He said he regrets the message. “I was a dope for responding to that at all,” Tramo said.

At the time of that exchange, it had been more than 18 months since Epstein’s guilty plea in Florida. Tramo said he was unaware that it included a sexual crime involving a minor. He said he “did not dig deeper” into Epstein because he was busy working — at times 80 hours a week — and saw that Epstein still was present at Harvard events and functions.

“If anything he had some kind of remorse and was on his penance campaign. Part of resolving himself was helping with noble endeavors,” Tramo said.

A message from Sept. 13, 2017 — the same year Epstein donated $100,000 to Tramo’s institute — also led to criticism at the on-campus protest and in online posts, including the petition to fire Tramo on Change.org.

“Was just reading today that newborns will suck on a pacifier more vigorously if it triggers playback of a recording of her/his mother’s voice than another woman’s voice,” Tramo wrote to Epstein.

In an interview, Tramo said that note was part of an “ongoing conversation” about a funding proposal contained in the Epstein files. In the 17-page pitch, Tramo asked Epstein to give $500,000 to create the “The Jeffrey Epstein Project for Brain Development in Critically-Ill Infants.” The two-year program would study premature infants responded to auditory stimulation. It was never funded.

Tramo defended pursuing Epstein’s cash.

“How could it be this guy had so much access to prominent scientists? Well, he has money,” Tramo said. “You develop a relationship with people like him who have funding. You find if they have an interest in your work. Are they smart, do they get it, are they affable, or are they jerky bankers, are they accessible?”

But Tramo also said he now questions if Epstein’s interest was genuine.

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