A lab with a view: American postdocs abroad.

As recently as the early 1970s, a postdoctoral research experience overseas was a valued part of training for a U.S. biologist aspiring to an academic position. Not only did the U.S. scientists benefit educationally from participating in different laboratory and cultural systems, but labs outside the United States were enriched by the ideas, perspectives, and skills brought by the visiting researchers. In the past 30 years, this migration of young U.S. scientists has notably declined while the United States now plays host to thousands of scientists, from all over the world, drawn to the energy and productivity of the large, U.S. research enterprise (Figure 1). Although the United States gains from retaining its native talent and attracting ambitious foreign scientists, other nations suffer from the loss of their own and visiting scholars. A study of postdoctoral fellows in the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP), which funds international collaborations in molecular biology, demonstrated that more than 60% of HFSP fellows, representing 47 countries, journeyed to the United States for research, whereas less than 7% of the fellows were Americans going abroad (Wiesel, 2000). The limited dispersal of young U.S. scientists is also reflected in data gathered about career plans of newly graduated PhDs. A recent survey (2000) showed that of approximately 10,000 U.S. citizens earning science PhDs, fewer than 300 chose to go abroad for further study after graduation. For specifically the biological sciences, this amounted to fewer than 100 U.S. citizens leaving for overseas (Hill, 2001). While globalization has made the world a smaller, more interconnected place, why are young, U.S. biologists reluctant to experience research in a foreign country? When asked this question, most faculty members and graduate students seem to share a common perception that the tenure-track faculty job market is too competitive to risk doing a foreign postdoc. Additional barriers keeping U.S.-trained scientists at home include fear of language difficulties and expectations of poorly funded research environments abroad. Furthermore, many overwhelmed PhD students do not know how to begin searching for a postdoc position in the United States, much less in the entire world. Ironically, some of these barriers are rooted in a basic fear of disappearing from the mainstream of U.S. academics in a time when technology