Advice for Aspiring Scientists Amid a Spasm of Anti-Science Doge Demolition
Have a Plan B, but don't give up.
I can think of few scientists who are more public-spirited than J. Marshall Shepherd, a climate reasearcher and professor of geography and atmospheric sciences at the University of Georgia and a consummate bridge builder between science and society through his blogging for Forbes and Weather Geeks podcasts. (Don’t miss the recent episode in which Shepherd asked outgoing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Rick Spinrad, “Is NOAA Going to Be Okay?”)
His latest Forbes post is vital reading for young Americans eager to pursue studies and careers in science but facing the attacks on academia and the implosion of federal funding for research and education under President Trump.
Imagine being a science-loving high school or college student right now. You may have seen the open letter from 1,900 members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine1 warning of a profound harms from the Trump administration’s “wholesale assault on U.S. science”:
If our country’s research enterprise is dismantled, we will lose our scientific edge. Other countries will lead the development of novel disease treatments, clean energy sources, and the new technologies of the future. Their populations will be healthier, and their economies will surpass us in business, defense, intelligence gathering, and monitoring our planet’s health. The damage to our nation’s scientific enterprise could take decades to reverse.
One of Shepherd’s core recommendations is to mesh passion with pragmatic adaptability, gained in part through studying more than one discipline. Shepherd gave me permission to repost a portion here with a link to the rest. Please read, weigh in and share!
[Also please hit the ♡ button above if you appreciate what I’m doing with Sustain What; purportedly it helps boost the visibility of posts on Substack.]
Passion or Pragmatism - Advice For Aspiring Scientists Right Now
I spent much of my childhood catching bees and other insects. After being stung by a bee, I learned the hard way about having a bee sting allergy. I pivoted my sixth-grade science project from entomology to meteorology. The rest is history. There are a couple of lessons in that story for students and aspiring scientists as the landscape shifts.
Students at the collegiate and high school levels are paying attention to reports of federal scientists being dismissed, programs being cut and other research funding pressures. They are asking professors, mentors, and alumni contacts important questions about future job prospects, availability of funding for graduate school, or whether to consider different career trajectories.
Let’s revisit my bee story. That sting was a sudden stressor that caused a pivot in my scientific career. For much of my early childhood, I wanted to be an entomologist. However, that sixth-grade science project, "Can a 6th-grader Predict The Weather," won a science fair and inspired a new passion. The honey bee inspired a Plan B. I went on to receive a doctorate degree in physical meteorology, work as a research meteorologist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, become President of the American Meteorological Society, host a pioneering show on The Weather Channel, and be elected to the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. To this day, I am a certified weather geek who followed a passion even if the immediate pathway was not always clear.
My story is no different than others that forayed into meteorology or atmospheric sciences. Membership surveys have shown that many members of the AMS developed a passion for weather in elementary or middle school. Most students who major in atmospheric sciences walk onto campus knowing that will be their field of study. It is rarely discovered.
Plan B And Passion
This leads me to my first piece of advice. Do not ever give up on you passion but have a Plan B. This may be the time to consider micro-credentialing or broadening the tools in the toolbox. Most universities or colleges offer double majors, co-majors, certificates, joint undergraduate - graduate programs and internships that can complement primary areas of study. We strongly advise our atmospheric sciences students to double major in geography to get exposure to GIS and social sciences perspectives. My daughter is pursuing a sociology degree with a sustainable certificate while being simultaneously enrolled in 3+2 program that allows her to work on a Master's degree in non-profit leadership and management.
Data science, artificial intelligence, applied statistics, GIS, and computational sciences complement many physical or biological sciences career paths facing contraction or job market fluctuations. An aspiring scientist right now should consider co-mingling passion with pragmatism….
The Academy, Private Sector, and Government Assure Resilience and Competitiveness
…To ensure success, advancement and competitiveness, government, industry, and academia will need to complement each other and collaborate in unison. During my tenure at NASA, I watched industry, civil servant, and academic scholars work seamlessly to provide vital technologies and scientific knowledge related wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, and drouth. Each sector brings unique capacity, expertise, and efficiency to the table. Their viability also depends on specialized scientists, programmers, technologists, and engineers.
Some of the world’s greatest medical, engineering, and scientific societies discoveries did not come from plans, spreadsheets or pragmatism. They came from scholars, scientists, and inventors with a passion for what they do. I hope we never get to a point where we are extinguishing the passion of our brightest young mines or forcing them to go elsewhere.
We need them here now and in the years to come.
As you can see, this is a compressed excerpt. Please read Shepherd’s full post at Forbes here: Passion or Pragmatism - Advice For Aspiring Scientists Right Now.
For sustainability sciences, the situation was already challenging
The current politics-driven crisis is particularly acute for early-career researchers or grad students focused on climate and other sustainability challenges. But their plight was already tough years ago, as I explored in 2021 with some of the post-docs who wrote a commentary in Nature Sustainability calling for universities to address big barriers to such research: “Supporting interdisciplinary careers for sustainability.” Learn more here and watch the discussion here:
The signatories say they are not speaking for their institutions and the National Academies have not yet weighed in officially on the actions of the Trump administration. Marshall Shepherd is an elected member of the sciences and engineering Academies but is not a signatory.