U.S. early-career researchers struggling amid chaos

From ScienceMag:

For one postdoc, uncertainty about whether the funding for her awarded “diversity” fellowship from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will come through means she’s spending valuable time writing more applications instead of doing research. For another, learning that the “dream job” he’d been offered at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) was being withdrawn because of the federal hiring freeze has left him clinging to his current position—and $5000 poorer because he already canceled his lease in preparation for moving. And a Ph.D. student whose dream is to one day lead a planetary mission at NASA is “panicking” about her professional future.

These are just a few of the countless researchers reeling after President Donald Trump’s administration unleashed a wave of actions over the past month—freezing funds, firing thousands of federal employees, upending programs and research related to gender and diversity, and more. Scientists of all stripes have been affected, but none more so than early-career researchers, a group already struggling with low pay and job insecurity. Now, some wonder how many of those budding researchers will throw in the towel and leave science, or the United States, entirely. “There’s going to be a missing age class of researchers that will reverberate for years,” one federal scientist fears.

Scores of young researchers were affected after the country’s main federal funding agencies, NIH and the National Science Foundation (NSF), canceled programs that were judged to be in violation of Trump’s 21 January executive order banning “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI).” Some were supplements to other grants secured by principal investigators and were meant to support the salaries and career development of trainees from underrepresented groups. Others were awards given directly to graduate students and postdocs who proposed, as part of their research or through outreach, to help broaden the participation of underrepresented groups in STEM fields.

“These kinds of shocks are going to lead to a mass exodus … for minorities in particular,” says Trajan Hammonds, a Princeton University mathematics Ph.D. student who last year applied for one of the postdoc fellowship programs NSF has since canceled. He expected to hear news about his application this month—but instead he got an automated email notification that the program had been deleted. He’s now scrambling to find other postdoc opportunities. “I’m fairly annoyed,” he says. “I would’ve happily applied for the ‘regular’ [fellowship] … and I would have had a pretty strong application.”

Another applicant, a postdoc who asked to remain anonymous, says they’re concerned about their own future in science—and about what will come of efforts to ensure the academic community is accessible to people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. “What part of diversity, equity, and inclusion do you have a problem with?” she asks.

The campaign against DEI could endanger some nondiversity grants to early-career researchers, as well. One Ph.D. student, who also wished to remain anonymous, told Science she applied for an NIH training grant to support her research on maternal mortality. Her proposal, which had been scheduled to be reviewed in January, mentioned racial disparities and used gender-neutral language such as “birthing people.” She fears it may now be flagged as being in violation of Trump’s executive orders.

Young researchers also face the prospect that positions for graduate students and postdocs will dwindle because of broader scale cuts to research funding—for instance, the threatened reduction in the indirect costs that universities charge to carry out research funded through federal grants. As graduate school admission decisions are being made, faculty at several research-intensive universities—including Vanderbilt University and the University of Washington—have been told to reduce the size of their incoming cohorts, the health news site STAT reported.

Some prospective students wonder whether they will even accept a slot if offered. Mathew Sarti was hoping to start grad school this fall. Now, he says, “I want to wait and see how departments handle certain things before committing fully to a place,” he says. He’s holding out for a department that will support students affected by the turmoil, as he was. A junior specialist in a lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Sarti was told by NIH in January that he was being recommended for funding for a diversity training grant. But on 5 February he and his supervisor received a follow-up email that said, “I regret to have to inform you that NIH has instructed us not to issue any diversity supplements that are pending.” He lost funding to attend conferences, and he can’t afford to pay his own way. “I’m first generation in all senses of the word.”

Many of the federal scientists fired this month are also early in their careers. “I feel like I was robbed of a career,” says one biologist who was terminated from his position at the U.S. Geological Survey on 14 February. Another fired scientist, who had started a position at USDA in 2023 after finishing a 3-year postdoc, says he had “envisioned this being my last job—one I would be in for 20 or more years.”

They’re now suddenly in an uncertain position, with a new set of financial challenges and anxiety about where they’ll be able to find work next. “I’m not optimistic about an already competitive job market that is going to be flooded with qualified scientists,” one said.

That leaves those earlier in the career pipeline worried as well, especially as reports start to trickle in about universities slowing hiring of faculty members and postdocs. “What does my future look like?” asks Ashley Walker, a fourth year planetary science Ph.D. student at Howard University who founded #BlackInAstro and dreams about working at NASA someday. “The job market—what it looks like today, will be completely different a year from now, right? And so, what trajectory does that lead me in?”

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