The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has promised an investigation after the head of its prestigious Media Lab stepped down over revelations that he concealed funding from Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who committed suicide last month while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking underage girls. 

Joi Ito, a technology entrepreneur who has led the Media Lab — which has a budget of $80m a year — since 2011, announced his resignation on Saturday. On Friday evening, the New Yorker published a story alleging that the professor had deliberately hidden Epstein’s donations to the prestigious Cambridge lab. 

“Because the accusations in the story are extremely serious, they demand an immediate, thorough and independent investigation,” MIT’s president Rafael Reif wrote in a note published by the university, which confirmed Mr Ito’s departure. He added that MIT would engage a “prominent law firm” to carry out the probe.