Other countries are welcoming US scientists that have been forced out by budget cuts. Read more.
One Scientist’s Story
How did Dr. Casey Middleton, a young woman from small-town USA, become an infectious disease researcher in Melbourne, Australia? The answer: several early pivots and then a reckoning and rewarding current pivot as US funding for science training and research was upended.
Pivot 1: Switching from Jane Austen to Calculus 3
Dr. Middleton grew up in Lexington, Tennessee, a town of 8,000 people. With an interest in science and math but not many career role models to emulate, Dr. Middleton thought her career path was either to a Pharm D (like her mother) or MD. She knew for sure that she wanted to stay close to her family, and she matriculated to Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. It was at Rhodes that she made the first pivot that would influence her career. After taking calculus 1 and 2, she enrolled in a calculus 3 course taught by Dr. Erin Bodine, a quantitative biologist who had developed the College’s biomathematics major. For the first time, Dr. Middleton could see how math could be applied to directly improve people’s lives, and she was hooked. She remarks, “My mother recounts this vivid memory of me when I decided to switch out of my Jane Austen literature class for calculus 3.” As a biomathematics major, she did research in infectious disease modeling, based on the 1878 yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, the largest in US history. Her research resulted in her first publication. In 2018, she graduated from Rhodes with a major in biomathematics and minor in chemistry.
Pivot 2: Narrowing the path
Dr. Middleton was almost certain her next step would be grad school but wanted to explore career possibilities in applied math. Her first step was as a data analyst for a housing nonprofit through the Americorps VISTA volunteer program. She used her training in data science and geographic information systems to develop a rental property management scorecard to make landlords in Memphis more accountable for the conditions of their urban rental properties. The scorecard analysis led to the creation of a license requirement for rental properties. The experience, although not aligned with biomathematics, was meaningful to her because she felt a connection to a struggling community. After completing her VISTA tenure, she decided to apply for jobs where she could earn money to save for grad school. She became a 10th grade geometry teacher in a Memphis high school. She adds, “That was the singular hardest job I’ve ever had. I loved those kids. I knew geometry but I was ill-prepared for how much goes into teaching.” She reluctantly gave up teaching in 2020 – the middle of the COVID epidemic – after she became very ill with viral meningitis and also got hurt trying to break up a fight in her classroom. She returned to data analysis, this time as an assistant to the mayor of Memphis, researching ways to improve access to emergency and public transit services in poor neighborhoods.
Pivot 3: Returning to biomathematics
With her diverse applied math background, she had trouble finding the perfect fit for graduate studies, and applied to many different grad programs. She remarks, “I considered myself a bit of an academic mutt. I was not “mathy” enough to fit into math programs and not “bio” enough to fit into bio programs.” She accepted an offer to attend the interdisciplinary BioFrontiers Institute at University of Colorado Boulder, where she did rotations in applied math, ecology and evolutionary biology, and computer science. For her thesis, she ended up developing infectious disease models under the auspices of computer science and won second prize in the 3MT (Three Minute Thesis) competition.
During her graduate tenure at the Institute, she completed two ORISE fellowships in infectious disease modeling at the Office of Readiness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It was at the CDC that she thought she had finally found her professional place.
Pivot 3: The Road from Lexington, Tennessee to Melbourne, Australia
After earning her PhD in early 2025, her career path in the CDC looked eminently promising, with three possibilities that included extending her ORISE fellowship to a postdoc, getting a new PE (Prevention Effectiveness) postdoc fellowship, or a permanent position. But none of these was to be. Hiring and contract freezes became effective at the CDC, as was the case at many other federal agencies. Her situation became Kafkaesque. She learned from a colleague who was a PE fellow that new fellowships weren’t being offered, which no one was allowed to tell the applicants because there was also a communication ban. She came to a heartbreaking realization. “It had been my dream to work at the CDC. I had done the ORISE fellowships to test out my dream and discovered I loved it. I tried to keep my foot in the door while doing the work, but I wasn’t reaping the benefits of that strategy for reasons that weren’t my fault. It really stung to let go of that [dream].”
She felt she had no choice but to apply for other postdoc positions in the US and internationally. She received an offer from a US university but felt that the funding situation was still too precarious. Then she was offered a postdoc fellowship in public health at the University of Melbourne. It was perfectly aligned with her career aspirations. The fellowship is contracted for three years and renewable for an additional two. Unlike many European positions, she was pleased to discover that postdoc compensation in Australia is comparable to that in the US. The University has also been generous in providing remuneration for moving expenses and guidance for permanent residency visa application. Plus, she will get four weeks of annual leave, the standard in Australia, and participate in Australia’s free universal health insurance.
Asked about the possible career risks, she doesn’t see any major downsides. Her work will be on vector-driven infectious diseases, which is considered a niche area in the US because of the lower prevalence of those diseases here, but she looks forward to gaining new skills and working with modeling experts from Europe who collaborate with the University. She even sees some advantages in working in an academic setting, where she will have more freedom to pursue forecast-driven research rather than the largely response-driven research at the CDC. An exciting connection with her new job will be working with mentors, who were instrumental on helping Australia define its strategy for the COVID epidemic and are helping to develop Australia’s version of the CDC. As she explains, Australia’s public health system is state based currently, but after COVID, the government decided they needed a centralized public health system.
She sees her biggest risk in immigrating to Australia as social. She will have to develop a new social support network. The 16-hour time difference will make it challenging for spontaneous contact. She is very close to her family and had planned to make up for time away from them in grad school. She thinks it most likely that she will see them twice a year – through her visits extended from attending US conferences and her parents visiting her in Australia. Most important is that her partner, who has an established career in the pharmaceutical industry, will be moving with her without benefit of a job offer in a country that has a smaller pharmaceutical presence.
The next pivot: The unknown
She has talked to many fellow postgrads who are struggling with the dwindling job prospects, to colleagues who have sought opportunities abroad (such a CDC colleague who has taken a professorship in London), and to undergraduates who are wary of the future. Despite a likely promising future career in academe, government, or the private sector in Australia, Dr. Middleton still hopes her next pivot will be a return to the US. She realizes, however, that even if funding resumes, time will be needed to build back the infrastructure that was lost. In the meantime, she thinks she has made the right decision.
Read about the first 100 days of impact on postdocs from executive branch actions in the AWIS Newsbrief.
Read about other women who have explored a global pathway.
Patricia Soochan was a senior program strategist in Data Science, Research, and Analysis in HHMI’s former Center for the Advancement of Science Leadership & Culture. In her role, she collaborated with the Center’s programs to capture, analyze, synthesize, and communicate program-level data to promote organizational effectiveness and evaluation. Previously she shared lead responsibility for the development and execution of the Inclusive Excellence (IE1&2) initiative and had lead responsibility for science education grants provided to primarily undergraduate institutions, a precursor of IE. She is a member of the Change Leaders Working Group in the Accelerating Systemic Change Network and is a contributing writer for AWIS Magazine and The Nucleus. Prior to joining HHMI, she was a science assistant at the National Science Foundation, a science writer for a consultant to the National Cancer Institute, and a research and development scientist at Life Technologies. She received her BS and MS degrees in biology from George Washington University.free