Nobel laureate leaves US for China amid Trump's funding cuts
What's the story
Nobel Prize-winning chemist Omar Yaghi has left the United States to join Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. He will head a new institute for AI-assisted materials discovery at the university. The move comes amid ongoing cuts to US science funding and restrictions on international research collaborations by the Donald Trump administration.
Funding fears
Disappointment over US science funding cuts
Yaghi had been an honorary professor at Tsinghua since 2022 and was formally inducted as a full-time faculty member on July 3. He expressed disappointment with the state of American science due to funding cutbacks and lack of government support in an interview with Scientific American, cited by Nature. He also warned that US researchers were lagging behind in adopting AI tools for research.
Research impact
Yaghi's work and new role in China
Born in Jordan to Palestinian refugee parents, Yaghi is known for his pioneering work on metal-organic framework compounds. These highly porous materials have applications in gas storage, catalysis, water harvesting, and drug delivery. At Tsinghua University, he will lead a team that combines AI with chemistry to accelerate the discovery of new materials for carbon capture and clean energy technologies.
Career milestones
Other awards and companies founded by Yaghi
Yaghi, who was previously associated with the University of California, Berkeley since 2012, is a recipient of last year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He has also been awarded the Wolf Prize and the Albert Einstein World Award of Science. The chemist has founded companies Atoco and WaHa in California but associates told Nature that his move to Tsinghua would not affect their operations.