Famous Foreign-born Scientists of the US
International students are important not just to the success of US-born students, but to the success of US colleges and universities. The reality is that the American college-aged population is not growing as fast than before, such as 0.2% of US high school graduates projected to increase in college enrollment in the next nine years compared 6% from the previous nine years. That means international students are becoming increasingly important to keeping US-based classes full, tuition revenue up, and US institutions thriving.
And these students don’t just keep US colleges and universities succeeding, they help the US economy thrive. International students studying in the US contribute $39 billion to the US economy and support more than 400,000 jobs, according to NAFSA, the association of international educators.
The US is seen as a technological leader and innovator throughout the world, but none of that would be possible without immigration, particularly from international student and scientists that came to the US. For instance, foreign-born scientists have brought home more than a third of America’s Nobel Prizes in STEM fields despite making up just 14% of the US population.
In the spirit of remembering those who came before us and paved the way for our successes in the US, below is a brief list of science’s most important figures who also were immigrants or refugees that came to the US:
Albert Einstein — Nobel Prize-winning physicist
Nikola Tesla — Expansion of AC current
Sergey Brin — Cofounder of Google
Elon Musk — Founder of SpaceX, Tesla Motors, & cofounder of PayPal
Mario Molina — Nobel Prize-winning chemist
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar — Nobel Prize-winning physicist
Enrico Fermi — Nobel Prize-winning physicist
Andrew Grove — Helped found Intel
Carl Djerassi — Father of “the pill”
Chien-Shiung Wu — “First Lady of Physics”
Gerty Cori — Nobel Prize-winning biochemist
Rita Levi-Montalcini — Nobel Prize-winning neurobiologist