Jason Arday, an author and academic who made history as the youngest Black professor at the University of Cambridge, has been found dead days after he resigned from the esteemed institution amid plagiarism allegations. He was 41.

Arday’s body was discovered “unresponsive” at an address in Battersea in London on Friday, Aug. 14, Sky News, the BBC and The Telegraph reported. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

“At this time his death is being treated as unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious,” a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police tells PEOPLE. “The case is being investigated by officers from the Met’s Central South Command Unit. A file will be prepared for the coroner.”

“We are desperately saddened to hear this tragic news. Our heartfelt sympathies go to Jason Arday’s family and friends at this incredibly difficult time,” Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Prentice tells PEOPLE in a statement.

On Aug. 5, Arday announced in a statement that he was leaving his position at the university, and its constituent Jesus College, effective immediately.

His decision came after the University of Cambridge announced an investigation “following new information about Professor Arday’s academic qualifications and honorary appointments.”

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Arday said he had become the target of “relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary [which] have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love.”

“When I accepted the extraordinary honor of becoming Professor of Sociology at Cambridge, it was, without question, the greatest professional privilege of my life,” he said.

“Sadly, the years since my appointment have also been marked by an unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attack,” he said. “While criticism is an inevitable part of academic life, what I have experienced has gone far beyond scholarly disagreement.”

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Born in 1985 to Ghanaian immigrant parents in south London, Arday was, according to his biography, diagnosed with autism at age 3, was nonverbal until he was nearly 12 and didn’t learn to read or write until his late teens. He was also diagnosed with conditions including deafness, dyslexia and dyscalculia.

His appointment to Cambridge’s faculty in 2023 received widespread media attention.

Arday, then 37, was also the youngest Black professor in Cambridge’s centurieslong history.

His work came under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks after a right-wing academic, Nathan Cofnas — who has a history of criticizing diversity and inclusion policies and has made racist statements about Black people’s capabilities — wrote on Substack that he used plagiarism software to uncover multiple “lifted” passages in Arday’s past work.

Other plagiarism accusations followed.

In a July 31 article, The Times in the U.K. referenced a July 24 analysis of Arday’s 2015 thesis in which it found multiple identical or near-identical passages to the earlier dissertation of Brunel University student Paula Zwozdiak-Myers.

Much of the criticism of Arday was driven by conservative commentators online, and some skeptics pored through years of his output looking for discrepancies; but his background and professional work also began to draw increasing coverage in the mainstream press.

These reports raised questions about Arday’s work and how exactly he described his extraordinary life, such as his accounts of raising millions for charity and running dozens of marathons in mere weeks despite a leg injury.

Even his descriptions of the backlash he faced, including his parents receiving a pig’s severed head, were challenged by reporters.

Arday denied plagiarizing but admitted to some previous scholarly “mistakes.”

“I hold myself accountable and other people should hold me accountable. We’re talking about academia here,” Arday told The Times in an interview in July. “I didn’t murder somebody. I think the cruelty that I’ve experienced and the positioning of me as this kind of liar and fantasist is totally unacceptable.”

“I can’t make people believe me,” he said. “Nobody lives their life having a receipt for every single thing they say or they’ve done.”

Sources: https://people.com/former-history-making-professor-found-dead-at-41-amid-plagiarism-scandal-12060465