I'm a foreign scientist at LANL, working only on open (non-clearance) science, and I'm leaving my scientist 2 job (early career 'permanent' position, right after post-doc) for a tenure track in academia.
Most of my early-career friends (foreign or US, 6 of the 7 early career friends I have here) are leaving or making concrete plans to leave, either to industry or to academia.
The main reason for that is that it is very difficult at LANL to work only on open science, especially as an early-career scientist. Scientist positions at LANL are soft money, meaning you must find your own funding (for all 12 months of the year, as opposed to just 3 in universities).
I would absolutely advise someone to come as a postdoc, just not so much to stay on as a scientist. I am leaving in good terms and will keep strong collaborations with LANL folks, but in my opinion it's very clear that any tenure track (in the US or not) is vastly better than a scientist position at LANL.
8 comments:
The lab isn't supposed to hire foreign staff except in rare cases where it is impossible to find any qualified US citizens to do the work. I've seen some cases where this may be true, but generally it is abused and threatens the security of the lab. As far as I'm concerned, if you want to leave, then leave. Your employment is at will and it would be better to have a cleared American, even if they are not quite as qualified. At least they can contribute to national security. You can do your work at any of a hundred different universities.
5.07 AM.
I have to ask does anyone have any knowledge of the history of LANL?
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Huge overhead makes it hard to compete on projects.
Being part of such a large institution forces you to contend with a lot of bureaucracy, like pointless training and cumbersome procurement.
You do not get to control your own computational resources. You cannot be an administrator on your own computer, for example.
I think half the postdocs at LANL are foreign nationals. If you go to any grad school in the US it's 50% or more in science and more like 65% in engineering are foreign nationals. Not to mention that on average the foreign nationals are better or at least much harder working. Of course this is not always the case but I hear it all the time from professors and anybody who has worked with grad students can confirm this trend. Musk and Vivek want to increase the H1B1 visa program to let in more talent and have gateway for new US citizens. Of course this has caused a big fight on the right who want less immigration and feel these guys have betrayed the cause (I think is is why Vivek is no longer part of the team). Sure lots of people say how we have plenty of young Americans who can code but there is big difference in doing since and writing apps.
The reason top tech companies or DOW often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:
Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.
A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.
A culture that venerates Cory from “Boy Meets World,” or Zach & Slater over Screech in “Saved by the Bell,” or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in “Family Matters,” will not produce the best engineers.
(Fact: I know *multiple* sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates).
More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of “Friends.” More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less “chillin.” More extracurriculars, less “hanging out at the mall.”
Most normal American parents look skeptically at “those kinds of parents.” More normal American kids view such “those kinds of kids” with scorn. If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve.
Now close your eyes & visualize which families you knew in the 90s (or even now) who raise their kids according to one model versus the other. Be brutally honest.
“Normalcy” doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China.
This can be our Sputnik moment. We’ve awaken from slumber before & we can do it again. Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.
That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence. I’m confident we can do it. 🇺🇸 🇺🇸
5:06 nailed it…30 years too late. Our scientists and engineers are now 2nd rate.
"5:06 nailed it…30 years too late. Our scientists and engineers are now 2nd rate."
Wow, Vivek Ramaswamy posts on the blog!
Unfortunately, I have partially agree that LANL scientists and engineers are now 2nd rate. I would claim the decline got going about 25-20 years. At one point LANL was the "crown jewel" of the DOE complex and did have people from top places. No one claims that anymore as LLBL, ANL, ORNL, and now PNNL are the top places. Heck even Sandia and LLNL are getting better.
I remember when the postdoc pool makeup was 50% from the top 20 schools. Sure we had plenty of foreign nationals but also some of the best US minds. Now I would guess it is less than 15 or 10 percent. Over the last 25 years the turn over rate has been pretty high with people leaving. There is also lots of grumbling amongst the lab fellows who did a study on the decline of science at the lab. They reported only on declining publications but they also discussed the decline in the quality of the people but chose not to study that that since it would be deemed too demoralizing. Another point that people discuss is that if the quality and impact basic science at LANL is declining what is happening to the programmatic science.
I am not sure the if Vivek point applies to LANL but maybe it has something to do with it.
Yes, the Manhattan project was heavily infiltrated by spies working for foreign governments. I assume that is what you mean. We cannot let that happen again today.
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