Science Careers Blog

One lesson gained from Michael Moore's film Sicko, and from this year's health care debate, is that Americans can learn a lot about health care from other countries. Now, the Commonwealth Fund offers fellowships in health care policy for experts from Europe and elsewhere to come to America, learn, and teach.

The Harkness Fellowships in Health Care Policy offer an opportunity for mid-career health-services researchers and practitioners from Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom to travel to the United States to conduct research on health policy and share what they discover.

Awardees receive up to $107,000 to spend 9-12 months working with U.S. health policy experts. After completing their research, awardees will publish their findings in a peer-reviewed journal or a report for policy-makers. The Commonwealth Fund hopes that these reports will provide a mix of health care ideas that have worked in other countries that can be combined with a U.S. health care strategy. The foundation expects the research to contribute to a system that provides Americans with better health care options.      

The Commonwealth Fund is a New York-based foundation that promotes the development of a health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency for all people, particularly the most vulnerable: people with low-incomes, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.

The deadline for applications is 15 September. More information about the Harkness Fellowships in Health Care Policy, is available on GrantsNet and the Commonwealth Fund Web site.

- Donisha Adams

Donisha Adams is the GrantsNet Program Associate for Science Careers.

For the first time in 5 years, admission offers from American universities to foreign grad students--including science and engineering students--dropped compared to the year before. Grad-school applications from foreign students increased slightly for the 2009-2010 academic year, but the increase was the smallest since 2005. These findings come from a Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) survey released last week.

The number of applications from foreign students rose 6% in social sciences and psychology, but life sciences applications remained flat and physical sciences, earth sciences, and engineering applications rose just 2-3%. In 2005 and 2006, these fields recorded double-digit increases in applications.

U.S. graduate schools offered fewer admissions to these students, a trend reflected in most other disciplines as well. While the number of offers to social science and psychology students increased by 1%, offers to life science students dropped by 1%, and engineering, physical science, and earth science offers dropped 4% in 2009. Overall, the number of offers to foreign grad students was down 3% compared to 2008.
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The number of grad-school applications from South Korea and India were both down 16%  in 2009. Applications from China, and from Turkey and the Middle Eastern countries, were up by double-digits over 2008. Offers to Chinese grad students increased 13% in 2009. For students from Middle Eastern countries and Turkey, offers rose 10%. . The survey report does not give data on students from Europe or the other American countries.

Universities with the largest numbers of foreign grad students continued to offer more foreign science and engineering students positions in their graduate departments. The 25 institutions with the largest foreign-student enrollments made 10% more admission offers to engineering and life science students from overseas in 2009, while social science and psychology offers increased by 5%. For foreign physical and earth science students, the number of offers barely increased (a 1% gain). For institutions with smaller numbers of foreign students enrolled, the numbers of offers were either flat or declined in 2009.

CGS conducted this survey in June, the second of three surveys of international graduate students conducted each year. The first survey in February provides a snapshot of initial applications. The last survey, in October, assesses foreign-student enrollments.

Today's New York Times tells how some recent American college graduates are finding better job prospects in Shanghai and Beijing than in Chicago and Birmingham. Chinese employers apparently value the Americans' entrepreneurial attitudes and practices, which, they say, are not often found in Chinese workers.

China has so far weathered the global recession better than the United States, and the job market there is not nearly as dire. As China's total economic growth rate (measured by the Gross Domestic Product or GDP) declined to 7.9% in the last quarter, the United States suffered through a 1% decrease in GDP. Unemployment in China's urban areas is reported at 4.3%, less than half of the U.S. rate of 9.4%.

A Science Careers feature in December 2006 outlined many scientific opportunities in China, but according to the Times, it's American business skills and attitudes Chinese employers now want to tap into. The story quotes a partner in the Shanghai branch of McKinsey and Company, an international consulting firm, who says that more young Americans are coming to China to take part in the country's entrepreneurial boom, particularly in the energy sphere, a field where graduates with science and engineering degrees often have an advantage.

Americans, the article says, are more likely tan their Chinese counterparts to take initiative, a trait observers quoted in the article attribute to the differences in education systems. In the United States, students have more incentives to experiment and take risks, while Chinese students are encouraged more to defer to their instructors.

Jason Misium, a recent Harvard graduate with a degree in in biology, has started an academic consulting business that helps Chinese who want to study in the United States. Misium tells the Times he found it easy to start a business in China, financed with his own savings.

Apparently, Americans find career progression more rapid in China, compared to the more sluggish United States. A 23-year old graduate of Barnard College in urban studies, recently hired as program director of a dance company in Beijing, tells the Times, "There is no doubt that China is an awesome place to jump-start your career. Back in the U.S., I would be intern No. 3 at some company or selling tickets at Lincoln Center."

The technology trade magazine Information Week reports that some 20,000 H-1B visas, used to bring high-skilled temporary workers to the United States, are still available for the current fiscal year. Immigration law sets an annual quota of 65,000 H-1B visas, and to date the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has received 44,900 visa petitions.

That number--65,000--applies to skilled workers at any level of educational attainment. A separate quota of 20,000, reserved for foreign nationals with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions, was met soon after they became available in April 2009.   In the 2 previous years, the quota for all H-1B visas, requested by companies seeking to hire skilled foreign staff, was met within a few days.

One reason for the lower demand may be sharp cut-backs by Indian outsourcing companies. Infosys, an Indian technology company with a large outsourcing business, told the Business Standard newspaper that it has filed 405 visa applications so far this year, well down from 4,800 the company requested last year. The newspaper says Infosys's two main competitors, Wipro and TCS, are also believed to have asked for far fewer H-1B visas, but the companies did not divulge any numbers.

The H-1B program has recently come under increasing scrutiny, with support for the program diminishing on Capitol Hill.  

An article published last week by The Scientist looks at the short- and long-term consequences of scientific misconduct on the careers of those who perpetrated it.

In Life After Fraud, three scientists give their versions of the facts that led the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to declare them guilty of scientific fraud. These scientists were barred from applying for federal funds for up to 5 years, and their names appeared in official documents together with details of their wrongdoings.

While guilty scientists have their names removed from official blacklists once they've paid their dues, remaining traces of their wrongdoings on the Internet keep haunting them long afterwards. All three scientists in the article managed to stay in science, but they had to deal with a tarnished reputation, which sometimes led employers to withdraw job offers after doing a Google search.

In an accompanying editorial, The Scientist's editor and publisher Richard Gallagher finds that "the current ORI procedure for the investigation of fraud seems fair. And the range of penalties for the guilty look, if anything, too lenient." But Gallagher argues that scientists found guilty of scientific misconduct suffer harsher penalties than intended. "A debarment from receiving federal funds for 3 years can effectively turn into a life sentence for researchers, permanently shutting down opportunities and eliminating career advancement," he writes. Gallagher makes a controversial call for a new system of dealing with fraud that also allows the rehabilitation of offenders.

 

Biology doctoral student, blogger, and Science Careers Facebook fan Danielle Lee points us to a competition that gives the winner an all-expenses-paid trip to Antarctica. The contest offers bloggers--Danielle is one of the contestants--a chance to post an essay on why they deserve to win the voyage. Visitors to the site vote on who they believe most deserves to go.

Quark Expeditions is holding the contest. The company says it has conducted commercial polar expeditions since 1991. Bloggers must post their essays, no longer than 300 words, on the Quark Expeditions site. The contestant who receives the most votes and a companion will receive a free cruise in February 2010 on one of Quark Expedition's vessels, plus round-trip air travel to Ushuaia, Argentina, where the ship departs.   

So far, 188 hopefuls have entered. A quick review of the entries shows that many science students and early-career scientists from around the world have signed up, as well as environmentalists of all ages. The competition opened on 19 June and continues to 30 September. Registration with the site is required for voting.

Up to this year, National Science Foundation (NSF) offered artists and writers opportunities to visit Antarctica, but that program has been put on hold. Here's last year's GrantsNet entry describing the program. NSF hopes to continue it after 2010. 

A new study finds a strong correlation between hidden or unconscious stereotypes that link males with science and mathematics to higher achievement among males in those fields. The findings, by University of Virginia psychology professor Brain Nosek, are published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study matches data from two independent databases, one on common biases and the other on science/math achievement. The first database, dubbed Project Implicit, examines hidden, unspoken stereotypes lurking among people in all walks of life, even those who consider themselves fair and open-minded. The project gathers data on gender, race, age, religion, and other social stereotypes and has collected data on the attitudes of more than 4.5 million people worldwide. Project Implicit has used Web-based questionnaires for data collection since 1998.

Nosek and his team matched the Project Implicit data to the achievement results in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). TIMSS gathers achievement data from 4th and 8th grade students worldwide. The latest TIMSS effort collected achievement results in 2007 on 8th grade students in 48 countries and 4th grade students in 36 countries.

Using the TIMSS 8th grade data, Nosek found that 70 percent of the Project Implicit participants in 34 countries with TIMSS  results hold implicit stereotypes connecting science and math to males more than females. And in those countries where the stereotypes were most pronounced, the gender differences in test scores were also more pronounced.

Project Implicit asks respondents to quickly associated male terms (e.g., he, father, son) or female terms (she, mother, daughter) with science terms (physics, chemistry, biology) or liberal arts (literature, history, arts). Most participants associated science terms with male terms rather than with female terms. The study also found these implicit connections at about the same rate among male and female respondents.

Nosek used data collected by Project Implicit from July 2000 through July 2008. The Gender-Science Implicit Association Test is one of the several demonstration tests on the Project Implicit site, if you want to test your own potential biases.

At a news conference by the Technology Policy Institute (TPI) last week, which was organized to build support for increasing high-skilled immigration to the United States, a key congressional backer of increased immigration for highly skilled workers put a damper on the audience's expectations.

American companies can now hire up to 65,000 foreign workers with H-1B visas. Another 20,000 H-1B visas are set aside for graduates of U.S. universities with advanced degrees. Supporters think these limits need to be revised upwards, while critics blame the H-1B program for low wages in high-tech jobs, among other sins.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), who represents Silicon Valley, gave the keynote speech at the 10 March 2009 meeting and immediately dampened hopes for lifting the caps on H-1B visas for high-skilled workers. Lofgren said she shares the opinion that increasing the numbers of immigrants with advanced degrees in engineering and science has benefits for the United States. "Anybody who wants to build our economy and grow our jobs," Lofgren said, "has to deal with the issue of how ... we attract and retain the Ph.D.s who are graduating from American universities, who are not residents and not U.S. citizens." Non-citizens, she noted, make up 42% of the masters degree candidates and 64% of the Ph.D. candidates in engineering at U.S. universities. The numbers are similar--39% for masters and 61% for Ph.D. students--in computer science. Of all science and engineering doctorates granted in the past 2 years by U.S. institutions, she noted, 43% were not citizens.

Lofgren added, however, that congressional action to raise the limits on H-1B visas would have to be part of a comprehensive immigration reform bill, because other industries -- she cited Western farmers and Chesapeake Bay fisherman as examples -- also have expressed a need for increasing the numbers of temporary immigrant workers. Measures that single out high-tech immigrants for immediate action, she suggested, would not attract the needed  support.

But the prospects for such a comprehensive immigration bill are slim, she continued: One such bill failed to pass in the last Congress, she pointed out, and there seems to be little appetite now to revisit the issue.

Yesterday's New York Times tells about increasing problems with visas encountered by foreign postdocs and students in the United States, particularly those in science and technology disciplines.

The problems, according to the article, involve delays, missing paperwork, and less-than-helpful U.S. embassy staff. They appear to be more serious for visitors from China, India, the Middle East, and Russia. A postdoc in genetics at MIT, from Belarus, ran into 3 months of bureaucratic delays and lost documents when she tried to renew her visa with the U.S. embassy in Minsk on a visit home. She ended up having to go to Moscow to get the visa.

An anonymous State Department source told the Times that delays like these (2-3 months) are common and a result of "an unfortunate staffing shortage." The Belarus postdoc, by the way, has decided not to do further work in the U.S.

The international student director at MIT says the problems often occur when the students or postdocs leave the U.S., for brief visits home or to attend scientific meetings. Trying to get a visa to return is when the problems often begin.

Visa procedures tightened markedly after the 11 September 2001 attacks but in recent years, the U.S. government improved the procedures that cut delays to about two weeks, and students began returning. In the 2007/2008 academic year, according to the Open Doors survey by International Institute of Education, the number of international students on U.S. campuses jumped 7% over 2006/2007. And the 2006/2007 year itself showed a 3% gain over 2005/2006. The Open Doors surveys also show that life science, physical science, computer science, engineering, and mathematics account for more than one-third (34.5%) of foreign students in the United States.

The problems, according to the article, caused AAAS (publisher of this blog and Science magazine) to convene a meeting with the National Academy of Sciences and several dozen other science organizations, to bring those problems to the attention of the State Department.  As the MIT international student director told the Times, "There are other countries that want these folks. They are the best of the best. They have other options."

Update: The Times story reminds us of a 2004 account in Science Careers of Haitham Idriss, a Thomas Jefferson University postdoc who went to Canada one weekend for some R&R. When he tried to reenter the United States, he was told he needed to register for a program called NSEERS, the provisions of which he found onerous. He refused and was not readmited. Outside the U.S., he never found another scientific position.

The last time we spoke to Idriss, we learned that he had given up on research and started a new scientific journal, Annals of Alquds Medicine, which now seems to be defunct. It was a pretty standard journal in all but two respects: it didn't allow submissions from an Israeli address, and it didn't allow references to evolution--which, Idriss maintained, contradicted Islamic orthodoxy. Make of this what you will. 

Going back to the workplace after being away for a number of years can be difficult for anyone, but especially for parents who choose being a full-time mom or dad. Today's Wall Street Journal reports that companies and institutions in science and engineering are setting up programs to help women (many more moms than dads leave the workplace for parenting) return to their former professions.

For employers, career re-entry, as this process is called, offers a source of experienced, skilled, and reliable talent. Even in tough economic times, their investment apparently pays off.

The Journal article by Sue Shellenbarger cites re-entry programs by companies such as Honeywell, IBM, General Electric, and BBN Technologies that provide training, mentoring, and referrals -- and sometimes even jobs -- to help women rejoin their working colleagues. The article also mentions programs by the British government and a General Electric initiative at its research center in Bangalore, India, as examples outside the U.S.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge offers a 10-month "Career Re-engineering" training course for engineers and scientists returning to work. MIT expects enrollment to grow from 10 to 24 by next fall.

Science Careers has covered career re-entry in some detail, particularly as it affects women outside the U.S. A story by Chelsea Wald in March 2008 detailed a number of career re-entry programs in Europe. And last month James Pauff and Misty Richards looked at this and related issues affecting women physician-scientists.

The Web site iRelaunch.com, described in the Journal article, has additional advice and resources.

Note: Paragraphs 3 and 4 corrected, 25 February 2009