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Research funding cuts in the US could cause an American brain drain in STEM field
With fewer science students and researchers considering the US as a destination, there is concern of a brain drain from the American STEM community. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with Marc Zimmer, chemistry professor at Connecticut College, about these concerns.
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Right now, there’s a big demand for American scientists in Europe and many other countries around the globe.
That’s worrisome for people working in STEM in the United States. Marc Zimmer is one of them. He’s a chemistry professor at Connecticut College, and has worked with many foreign students and researchers.
His experience goes back to the 1980s, when he came to the US from South Africa, as a student himself.
Marc Zimmer with students on a research trip in Namibia.Courtesy of Marc Zimmer
“Coming from South Africa, the educational system was designed for about 12% of the population in an apartheid town,” Zimmer told The World. “So, whites living in South Africa got really good education, but then because of apartheid, a lot of them left. And so, that was the brain drain that was occurring in South Africa.”
He witnessed a brain drain from his homeland, and a brain “gain” to the US. And now, Zimmer is worried about the United States’ future if that brain gain is lost.
Marc Zimmer, chemistry professor at Connecticut College, witnessed brain drain firsthand growing up in South Africa.Courtesy of Marc Zimmer
“It’s only when I came to America that I realized, ‘Oh, America is succeeding because it’s got this brain gain. It’s gaining scientists from all over the world and they’re really contributing to the US science,’” Zimmer said. “In science, at the moment, America is doing really, really well; only 4% of the population wins most of the Nobel Prizes in the sciences … and many of those — about 40% — are people who were actually born in foreign countries.”
Zimmer talked more about brain drains and gains and what could be next for the future of science with Host Carolyn Beeler.
Carolyn Beeler: In a recent article for The Conversation, you effectively sounded the alarm about this issue and laid out a compelling argument that the current research landscape imperils American prosperity. Connect the dots here on how fewer international scientists coming to the US would imperil American prosperity, specifically.
Marc Zimmer: Two points here: One is that the whole economic system in the world is a growth economy, and so, areas that [experience growth] are driving the economies of different countries. That used to be agriculture but then industrialization followed … and that’s really where America got really big. But now, it’s science and technology. If you look at the biggest companies in the world, most of them are tech or pharmaceutical companies. So, that’s why science is driving the economy. That’s what my argument would be.
And then, of course, why is this imperiled? It’s imperiled because America’s reliance on foreign students coming here to pursue their graduate studies, postdoctoral work and then staying here, or even attracting the very best scientists from other countries to come to America, is due to its robust peer-reviewed science system that funds basic science. If we start messing with that, we can start really losing people and getting brain drain instead of getting a brain gain.
And then, of course, why is this imperiled? It’s imperiled because America’s reliance on foreign students coming here to pursue their graduate studies, postdoctoral work and then staying here, or even attracting the very best scientists from other countries to come to America, is due to its robust peer-reviewed science system that funds basic science. If we start messing with that, we can start really losing people and getting brain drain instead of getting a brain gain.
As you’ve mentioned, this is also your story, to some extent. You left your home in South Africa in 1985 to come to the US to do your PhD. Why did you choose to study here in the US versus anywhere else?
Being a white male in South Africa, I knew that I had to go to the military service, a two-year military service in support of apartheid. And in high school, I already knew that I didn’t want to do that. So, studying was my only way out. I earned undergraduate and master’s degrees in chemistry, and then applied to a number of universities in America. Worcester Polytechnic Institute replied within three weeks and gave me a minimum amount of money, $7,000 a year, but I came to America and never really regretted it. I completed my PhD at WPI and then pursued a postdoctoral position at Yale.
We’ve been talking about the measurable benefits of having international scientists in the US. We’ve been talking about American prosperity. I’m wondering what you see day-to-day that might be harder to quantify as the benefits of having a globally diverse scientist population in the US. What does that look like? What do you see?
I think one of the great things about the American system is that, typically, students do an undergraduate degree at one university, then go to a different university for their PhDs, and then a different one as a postdoc again. Students get a lot of benefits from doing research at different places with slightly different interests. There will be students who’ve come from all kinds of universities in America. And foreign universities. All these students have come with a slightly different background, a different way of looking at science, a different way of studying science.
Could you tell me more about how this changed funding landscape might impact science in the US?
I think one of the real concerns is that the funding will be much more applied, where the money is given to projects where you can see a quick return for the investment in the research. And that’s not always the case. I study a protein that comes from a jellyfish called crystal jellyfish. It gives off little pinpricks of light. It took about 30 years to understand how this light came about. And then another 10 years to really start using this. Somebody else figured out, “Wow, we can take this gene for this protein that gives off light, and we can put it into any organism.”
So, you can genetically modify the malaria parasite, so it glows red. And then you can have a mouse with some blood that’s full of these parasites, and you’ll be able to see where the parasite goes. You can track this parasite. You can do the same with cancer cells, with anything. And it’s really revolutionized the way molecular biology and medicine is done.
But this is something that wouldn’t have been funded in today’s environment. And so, I think we have to be really, really careful when we look at National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NSF funding, and we hear, “We want to be practical. We want get make this worth our money.” Applied science is really great, but basic science is also very, very important.
So, you can genetically modify the malaria parasite, so it glows red. And then you can have a mouse with some blood that’s full of these parasites, and you’ll be able to see where the parasite goes. You can track this parasite. You can do the same with cancer cells, with anything. And it’s really revolutionized the way molecular biology and medicine is done.
But this is something that wouldn’t have been funded in today’s environment. And so, I think we have to be really, really careful when we look at National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NSF funding, and we hear, “We want to be practical. We want get make this worth our money.” Applied science is really great, but basic science is also very, very important.
Parts of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.