Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) machine. Credit: U.S. Department of Energy
By Rob Marus
America’s ability to grow, attract, and retain talent in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is in serious danger, AAU President Barbara R. Snyder recently told a group of the country’s leading young energy researchers.
Snyder spoke June 9, in a keynote speech during an awards program for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which is part of the United States Department of Energy and a vital funder of energy breakthroughs. She said that, although the young researchers present were among the world’s most promising, the country risks failing to develop future talent – and losing many of our current young researchers to other nations.
“Our STEM talent pipelines are under serious strain,” she noted. “The National Science Board’s State of U.S. Science and Engineering 2026 report, just released last month, demonstrates this.”
- “We are seeing declining performance among America’s elementary and secondary students in science and mathematics,” particularly as compared with peer nations, she noted.
- Snyder also observed, “there has been a recent decline in the numbers of foreign STEM talent coming to study or conduct research in the United States” – including a drop between 2024 and 2025 of 24% in enrollment by international students in U.S. STEM master’s degree programs.
- She also noted “the significant disruptions to research funding we have seen recently across the federal government.” Snyder said the disruptions “are leading to sudden declines in the numbers of PhD students and other researchers who enroll in our universities and operate the very labs where innovation takes place.”
What’s worse, she added, was that, even as America risks losing STEM talent, competitor nations are investing more in STEM research and development. “China may have already equaled or eclipsed our own amount of public spending on this crucial research, Snyder said.
She concluded: “As we celebrate these emerging science-and-innovation leaders tonight, let us not lose sight of the increasingly competitive world they are entering. And let us recommit ourselves to the government-university research partnership that, in the last 80 years, has put the United States at the forefront of the greatest period of scientific advancement the world has ever known.”
Snyder’s remarks came during an annual awards and recognition ceremony for participants in the ARPA-E IGNIITE program. IGNIITE provides early‑career scientists and engineers with funding, mentorship, and other support to pursue bold new ideas in energy research. The two-year grants (which average around $500,000) support projects that are still at an early stage but have the potential to significantly improve how we produce, store, move, or use energy, with the goal of strengthening America’s long‑term energy security and technological leadership.
The program also provides the young researchers with assistance in finding ways to commercialize the breakthroughs and discoveries that come from their research, turning unconventional concepts into potentially transformational energy technologies that serve the United States’ strategic interests.
Rob Marus is deputy vice president for communications at AAU.