Trump’s research cuts drive young UCSC astronomers to leave U.S. in search of academic careers

UC Santa Cruz doctoral astronomy student Nicholas Scarsdale, 28, is learning Spanish and moving to Spain in October – things he had never previously imagined he would be doing. 

But he’s leaving his home country in hopes of achieving what he’s long held to be on his list of life goals – to be a professional scientist and be able to pay the rent – and he’s concerned that he won’t be able to do that in the United States. 

Scarsdale cited the Trump administration’s vast cuts to federal research funding to universities, attacks on climate science and on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, as well as the president’s budget proposal to cut 24% of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Of the 10 astronomy doctoral students who are graduating this year, Scarsdale said at least three, including him, are going abroad for their postdocs: “an unusually high split in favor of abroad.”

A postdoc is a position, most often at a university or research center, for students who’ve completed their doctoral degrees to continue their research and receive training. It’s an essential step prior to being hired as a professor at a university. Scarsdale said most often, UCSC’s graduates have stayed for their postdocs in the U.S, where they have also most likely gone on to take jobs at universities or research institutes such as the Southwest Research Institute in Texas, and continue their work. But now that pathway has been interrupted, and many are looking abroad.  

Scarsdale was a contributor to a study published last year in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement, which helped deepen the understanding of planets in other solar systems. And rather than continuing that work in the States, he’ll be doing his research at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Granada, Spain. 

He said he and his fellow graduates discussed how the fear of retribution or loss of funding for their research has played a part in their decisions to accept postdoc positions abroad.

“We’ve talked about this quite a lot,” he said. “I think they’re also really interested in being in an environment that doesn’t feel – this word gets used a lot – but this kind of authoritarian, claustrophobic presence of: ‘I don’t want to misspeak, because my funding will be threatened.’” 

As the Trump administration has cut millions of dollars in funding to universities, European countries have started to increase efforts to attract scientists fleeing the U.S. UC Santa Cruz officials say they’ve lost $15 million in federal funding, which came from agencies including the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. That funding often pays the salaries of postdocs in a wide variety of fields from marine biology and genetics to astronomy, and also helps fund graduate students such as UCSC astronomy doctoral students. 

“There’s tremendous uncertainty about what the future of astronomy looks like, and whether there’s a future in astronomy for our graduate students and postdocs,” said UCSC Astronomy & Astrophysics department chair Jonathan Fortney. 

Fortney said 3 out of 10 graduates going abroad for their postdocs is a sign that funding cuts are already having an impact on the field of astronomy in the United States. He’s concerned that the industry will shrink in the coming years. 

“People are definitely thinking about places outside of the U.S.,” he said. “I think it’s damaging to this idea that the best and brightest from around the world want to come here – that’s being tremendously damaged. And also the people that are our best and brightest are looking elsewhere.” 

UCSC graduate student Isabel Justice Kain, 26, is partially funded by an NSF grant and is two years from finishing her doctorate in astronomy. She fears any day that that NSF grant could be eliminated and that there might not be any postdoc positions left for her when she exits her program. 

“It is really, really existential, already,” she said about the impacts of federal funding cuts. “I’m two years out from graduating with my Ph.D. and starting to look for postdoc jobs, but it’s becoming extremely clear to me that if things continue on this path, there are going to be basically no more research jobs in the U.S.” 

Kain works in a lab run by University of California Observatories in a small set of buildings on the northern part of UCSC’s campus. She uses equipment called “scales” that takes photos of planets beyond our solar system, known as exoplanets, using technology that helps scientists figure out how big the planets are and what their atmospheres and planet surfaces are like. “So trying to detect planets, characterize them,” Kain said, “and then try to understand how they fit into our larger picture of what kinds of planets the universe makes.”

Kain’s goal is to build the tools that other astronomers use to hunt for exoplanets.

She hopes to continue doing that kind of work in a postdoc program once she graduates. But she’s starting to be concerned about the likelihood of any positions surviving these cuts, and about her future as an astronomer. 

“A lot of people right now in the cohort in my department that just graduated, most of them have accepted jobs outside of the U.S., which is maybe an indication of how quickly the terrain is shifting for scientists,” she said. “These are all people who probably would have preferred to stay in the U.S., close to family. These are mostly American citizens, so the impacts are being felt extremely fast.” 

This year’s graduating class of doctoral students was atypically large; each cohort is around six to seven students on average, Fortney said. 

The department had about 300 applicants this year, and in a typical year it can make 20 to 25 offers to end up with those approximately six or seven who end up enrolling. But considering the university’s budget deficit and the federal funding uncertainties, Fortney said the astronomy department is enrolling only three Ph.D. students this fall. 

“Historically we’ve been a department that has really tried to make a culture where people minoritized in the field feel like they have a home,” he said. “The current administration is really driving against that, which has really caused a lot of damage to how people are feeling about their place in astronomy, and whether they feel they have a place here in our country.”

Sarah Blunt, 30, an astronomy and astrophysics postdoc through an NSF grant at UCSC, said she and fellow postdocs with federal funding are filled with anxiety over the potential cancellations of their grants. 

“All of us are on pins and needles, thinking that we’re gonna get cut,” she said. “Every time I open my email, I’m bracing for news.”

Blunt received three years of funding through the NSF grant and is in only her first year. 

“I think my biggest concern is probably just that I’d have to leave the field, not work in astronomy anymore,” she said. “I’ve been working to become a professional astronomer since I was 18 or 19.” 

Blunt and Scarsdale both acknowledged that astronomy is a unique discipline in that not many jobs exist for astronomers outside of academia. Biologists, for example, have a wide range of opportunities to do research for the private sector while astronomers do not. 

Blunt said she’s already started applying to faculty positions but has found that many universities are holding back on hiring, and she learned that several jobs she applied for were later eliminated.

“We’re all anticipating that the upcoming cycle, job application cycle, will be even more brutal, and then probably there will be very few openings posted,” she said. “I was actually supposed to be hired somewhere, and the position got cut. If Trump hadn’t been president, I would probably have a job.” 

She was informed a couple of weeks ago that the position was eliminated because the department’s budget was cut so severely. 

Blunt was told two or three times out of about seven jobs she applied for that those positions had ultimately been cut. She said although she has thought about going abroad, she’s not considering applying to jobs outside of the U.S. for the moment because her family and partner are here and likely wouldn’t move. 

Blunt has invested the past decade of her life to pursue this career, and loves doing the work. 

“It’s a really big part of my identity, and also just something that brings me a lot of joy and excitement – being able to spend my time working on understanding fundamental things about the universe,” said Blunt. “So I’m sad to think about not doing astronomy.”

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