Halley Froehlich, a researcher studying how fish and seaweed respond to climate change, moved from the University of California, Santa Barbara to the University of Helsinki in Finland after what she described as a slow burn of concerns. She cited school safety, gun violence, and the cumulative effect of colleagues' grants being postponed or canceled. 'The cumulative effect of those things ultimately ended up making us really serious about, I don't think here is our home anymore,' Froehlich said. She now has five years of guaranteed funding totaling about $3 million.
Christine Stawitz left her job at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration last year to become a research software engineer at the University of Birmingham in England. She said NOAA no longer aligned with her values, especially after she was asked to strip websites of references to climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion topics. 'That reputational loss, I think, is hard to quantify, but also really damaging,' Stawitz said. She added that the upheaval in U.S. science is a common subject at scientific meetings: 'People talk about the U.S. at conferences in the U.K. now like, I don't know what's going on there. It's not good.'
Married biologists James Letts and Maria Maldonado were recruited to Australia's Monash University after experiencing grant-related uncertainty at the University of California, Davis. 'All I want to do is do great science and make discoveries, but I want my work to mean something as well. And the opportunity to do that seemed very difficult in the U.S.,' Letts said. Omar Yaghi, a 2025 Nobel Prize winner for chemistry, left the University of California, Berkeley to direct an AI lab at China's Tsinghua University.
Tobin Smith, senior vice president of the Association of American Universities, said the shift is clear and unprecedented. 'You can almost talk to any vice president for research at a university and they will tell you of one or two top faculty that they've lost,' Smith said. White House spokesperson Liz Huston said Trump is 'ending waste' and is 'committed to keeping America the world leader in scientific innovation, and that means funding real science.'
An April report found that more than half of American states have lost scientists to recruitment programs in other countries. Physics Ph.D. graduates in 2025 left the U.S. at the highest rate in 30 years, according to the American Institute of Physics. Major research institutions accepted 15% fewer applicants for fall 2026 doctoral programs compared to last year. The Trump administration has cut or frozen up to $174 billion in federal grants since the president's second term began, according to a tracking tool from the States United Democracy Center and Grant Witness. A proposed rule from the Office of Management and Budget could give political appointees more control over future research funding; a resolution approved by Congress has delayed a final decision until December.