Most workday mornings, Eddie Cascella is too busy to get depressed about his career.
From behind the counter at The Coffee Exchange on the East Side of Providence, the 26-year-old environmental scientist serves bags of coffee beans to a steady stream of customers.
“Would you like that ground or whole bean?” he asks each customer.
But in quieter moments at work, his mind tends to wander. “And I just think about what could have been…or what [has] been totally derailed,’’ he said in an interview.
Cascella was on track for an exciting career when he graduated last December from the University of Rhode Island with a Masters Degree in Environmental Science and Management. He’d piloted a project that uses satellite imagery to monitor the health of salt marshes along the Fire Island National Seashore off Long Island. And he was being recruited for a job managing scientific research permits for the National Park Service.
But since President Donald Trump took office in January, his administration has fired close to 24,000 probationary employees, canceled grant reviews and frozen funding for the sciences.
And like a lot of young scientists, Cascella’s job prospects, along with the money budgeted to pay for his research evaporated.
Now, Cascella works part-time as a barista. He lives in a spare room at his mother’s house in Warwick. He is also applying for jobs outside the country. He recently interviewed with a university in Spain for a job monitoring salt marshes along the Mediterranean coast.
“It feels weird to say out loud,’’ he said, “that some of the most viable options are exploring moving abroad.”
And the opportunities for scientists abroad appear to be growing. The Netherlands is launching a fund to attract top scientists fleeing the U.S. The top executive of an Australian think tank is calling for fast-track visas to top U.S. scientists. A university in France has created a website called Safe Place for Science.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey is already warning about a potential brain drain. Healey said earlier this month at a press conference at Boston Children’s Hospital that recruiters from China, Europe, and the Middle East are looking for researchers and scientists to lure overseas.
“We’re giving away assets to other countries,’’ Healey said, “instead of training them, growing them, supporting them here.’’
Kris Lewis, an assistant professor at URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography, said that she is reluctantly advising some students to look abroad because that may be their best shot.
“We have incredible talent here in the U.S.,’’ Lewis said, “and I’m really scared that we’re going to lose it.”
The loss of opportunities in the U.S. feels especially painful for young people like Drew. He’s 25 and was recently placed on administrative leave from his job at the Environmental Protection Agency in Narragansett. (The Public’s Radio agreed to use only his first name because he worries speaking publicly could hurt his chances to work in government again.)
Drew recently moved to Rhode Island from outside of Boston. He bought a car – a 2009 Honda Civic – and signed a lease on a $1,200-a-month apartment in South Providence.
Now, Drew is back in the job market. Only this time, he’s also looking for work abroad. He said it’s ironic when he thinks that his own father immigrated to this country from Jamaica to earn a living.
“You know, my dad left his home and his family for a better life and for opportunity, right?’’ he said. “I don’t want to go through that, necessarily, but I think that if I have to, I will.’’
Drew has even started looking for jobs in Australia.
