Interesting Reads This Week
With so much AI content, you’ll begin to think you are at a conference.
Glenda Morgan
December 13, 2025
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I am finally home after four weeks of fairly crazy travel (Orlando, Iowa, Germany, and Washington, DC) and am close to being done with the Too Many Things to which I had committed myself (not to be confused with the Too Many Things to which I am committing myself in the spring).
This week, I had a wonderful chicken biryani at Pappe in DC, which I somehow forgot to photograph. But what did I read while wedged into a too-small seat in a metal tube hurtling through the air?
Intellectual AI flows & chart candy
A research article charts the growing number of Chinese scientists leaving the United States for China. Chinese students make up a large share of those pursuing graduate degrees in the U.S. While most have traditionally intended to remain after completing their degrees, the authors show that an increasing number are now returning home.
Out of about 34,000 Ph.D. recipients in science/engineering (S/E) fields awarded by US institutions in 2020, 46% (approx. 15,000) held temporary visas, a lower bound estimation of “foreign students”. Among these 15,000 recipients with temporary visas, the largest portion came from China, at 37%, three times the proportion from India, the second largest sending country. In other words, 17% of all 2020 US doctoral degrees in S/E went to foreign students from China [snip]. Most foreign-born noncitizen recipients of US S/E doctorates remain in the United States for subsequent employment. For those from China, about 87% of new PhDs in 2005 to 2015 intended to stay in the United States
