In a rare case of prosecuted fraud in a National Science Foundation grant, a former professor at Tennessee State University has pleaded guilty to a federal felony charge of making false statements. The professor, Barbara A. Nye, was a former faculty member in the department of educational administration and executive director of its Research and Policy Center on Basic Skills.

In that capacity, she was principal investigator on a $5-million NSF grant to improve science education in the Nashville public schools, the Associated Press reported. As part of that grant, Ms. Nye hired several teachers.

On the side, Ms. Nye ran her own consulting business. And in 2003 she won the job, as a consultant, to evaluate a similar grant program at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. To carry out the work, she sent two of the teachers, paid by her own NSF grant, to Huntsville, without letting them know that this was a separate project, according to a summary of the matter released this week by the U.S. attorney’s office in Nashville, which prosecuted the case.

Ms. Nye also submitted the teachers’ travel expenses for payment out of the grant. The total loss to the grant was “more than $10,000.” She will be sentenced on July 30. —Andrew Mytelka