US Journey Ban Forces Iranian Biologist to Abandon Harvard Postdoc Amid Expertise Drain

For practically a yr, Delaram Pouyabahar deliberate her subsequent tutorial step round a postdoctoral place at Harvard College. Interviews, fellowship purposes, visa paperwork and a consular interview in Toronto have been all accomplished. Then, in early June 2025, a brand new US journey ban quietly introduced these plans to a halt.The coverage, introduced on June 4, expanded the scope of the 2017 journey ban to 19 international locations, together with Iran. Not like the sooner ban, which nonetheless allowed many college students and tutorial researchers to enter the US after delays or particular approvals, the brand new guidelines eliminated these pathways altogether. In accordance with Pouyabahar’s personal public account, her visa course of merely stalled after the ban took impact, leaving her unable to take up the Harvard postdoc she had spent months making ready for.

Prime expertise caught within the US–Iran battle

Pouyabahar is just not an obscure or early stage applicant. She is an Iranian born computational biologist specialising in machine studying strategies for single cell RNA sequencing, a quick rising space on the intersection of AI and life sciences. One among her Nature journal papers has been cited greater than 200 occasions, an unusually excessive determine for an early profession researcher and a marker of broad affect throughout the area.Her work focuses on growing instruments that assist scientists interpret complicated organic information, strategies that at the moment are utilized by analysis teams worldwide. In a worldwide tutorial system that prizes measurable influence, quotation counts and journal high quality, her profile locations her among the many best candidates for elite postdoctoral positions.

The 2025 journey ban goes additional than its 2017 predecessor. Whereas the sooner coverage finally allowed exemptions for F and J visas masking college students, postdoctoral researchers and visiting students, the brand new model gives no such carve outs. New entries from affected international locations are blocked no matter tutorial credentials or institutional sponsorship.Larger training associations and college immigration places of work estimate that 1000’s of potential college students and students, doubtlessly greater than 10,000, might be affected by the coverage. At establishments resembling Harvard, directors have warned that dozens of incoming researchers from banned international locations could also be unable to take up their positions.

Speeding to outrun a coverage shift

When draft variations of the ban appeared in media studies in March 2025, Pouyabahar tried to speed up her timeline. She rescheduled her PhD defence at brief discover, making ready in simply two weeks within the hope that an earlier completion date may defend her plans.These efforts proved futile. The ban was introduced solely weeks after her visa interview, and he or she has stated she by no means obtained a response. When she requested about the opportunity of an exemption, she was instructed it was unlikely to assist beneath the brand new coverage framework.

A compelled pivot to Canada

With the US possibility closed, Pouyabahar redirected her profession to Canada, the place she was already primarily based and the place immigration pathways for researchers stay extra predictable. The transfer allowed her to proceed her work, nevertheless it got here at the price of abandoning a fastidiously deliberate transition to one of many world’s most prestigious analysis environments.Her expertise displays a broader sample amongst Iranian students affected by the ban. Many have quietly rerouted their careers to Canada or Europe, whereas others have delayed tasks, misplaced funding alternatives or put tutorial plans on maintain altogether.

Innovation versus immigration politics

Economists and science coverage researchers have persistently proven that top expert immigrants play an outsized function in US innovation. International born scientists account for a disproportionate share of patents, startups and breakthrough analysis, significantly in fields resembling biotechnology and synthetic intelligence.Critics argue that insurance policies which exclude researchers like Pouyabahar undermine America’s scientific and financial competitiveness. Supporters of the ban body it as a nationwide safety measure. What stands out, nonetheless, is how muted the political and public response has been in contrast with the airport protests and authorized battles that adopted the 2017 journey ban.

Past the quick profession influence, Pouyabahar has described the psychological toll of the method, pointing to months of uncertainty over visa standing, the chance of frozen grants and the fixed concern of sudden coverage modifications.Reflecting on the result, she has stated that within the present political local weather she feels a way of reluctant aid at not coming into a system the place immigration standing might be overturned in a single day. For her and lots of others, the expertise has reshaped how they view the US as a vacation spot for constructing a scientific profession.