‘No way to invest in a career here’: US academics flee overseas to avoid Trump crackdown

Budding scholars pursue overseas jobs amid attacks on education and research, prompting fears of an American brain drain

Eric Schuster was over the moon when he landed a lab assistant position in a coral reef biology lab at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography (SIO). The 23-year-old had recently graduated with a bachelor's degree in nanoengineering from the University of California, San Diego, into a fiercely competitive job market. He felt like he'd struck gold.

But the relentless cuts to scientific research and attacks on higher education by the Trump administration have turned what felt like a promising academic future into unstable ground.