At a crossroads

摘要

A year ago, Jun Yao was facing a difficult dilemma. Having completed a PhD and two postdoctoral stints in the United States, the Chinese-born neuroscientist was well placed to pursue an academic career in his adopted country. But recruiters in China had also taken note of his achievements and were offering him substantial incentives to continue his research back home. Should he stay or go? When Yao had left China in 2002, the United States had obvious advantages as a place for launching his career. He did a PhD at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) in College Park, followed by postdocs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. But he knew that the environment for science research, and especially funding, had notably improved in his homeland over the past ten years. So much so, in fact, that Tsinghua University in Beijing - one of the nation's top-tier institutions - was now able to offer him a position as principal investigator in neuroscience and a generous starting package. Based on what Yao had seen of offers in the United States, the deal was exceptional.