Fish scientist Sarah Weisberg relocated to Denmark after job cuts at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Credit: Ellie Heywood
In late 2024, Sarah Weisberg started her ‘dream job’ at an office of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) called NOAA Fisheries. She was working as a fish biologist at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, helping to research and inform management of fishing and marine resources. Along with her husband, Weisberg — who had completed her PhD in marine science at Stony Brook University in New York earlier that year — even bought a house in Rhode Island to be closer to her new job.
Just five months later, in February 2025, Weisberg was one of thousands of federal workers let go without warning during a massive government downsizing led by the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). NOAA Fisheries alone lost 545 employees in the cuts; 234 were at regional science centres, such as Weisberg’s office. Similar cuts came to other federally funded scientific organizations, including the National Institutes of Health and NASA.
The DOGE cuts are just one part of the changing research landscape in the United States, which is causing its scientists to increasingly consider international positions. A Nature poll of 1,200 US scientists, published in March 2025, found that 75% were considering looking for scientific positions abroad, and a Nature analysis in April 2025 found that the number of US scientists applying for jobs abroad had risen by 32% from 2024.
When Weisberg lost her job at NOAA early last year, she tapped her professional network. Less than a month later, she hopped on a plane to Copenhagen to start a new job as a professional-advice officer at the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), where she works with researchers to provide scientific guidance to policy experts. Now, she bikes to work daily and enjoys taking her dog on train adventures. She tells Nature how she decided to leave the United States, how her work has changed and how she’s adjusting to Danish life.
What was your scientific career in the United States like before the move?
My dissertation research was federally funded by the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service–Sea Grant Fellowship, which is essentially a workforce-development programme for people who will become the next generation of scientists working at NOAA Fisheries.
I was hired by NOAA Fisheries, specifically the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, after I completed my PhD in September 2024, and I was extremely excited to start work. In my field, my position had been the most desirable type of job, from both a scientific perspective and an impact perspective — and from a quality-of-life perspective, too. Jobs at NOAA were considered stable.
One project that I worked on most while there was the State of the Ecosystem report. It’s an annual report that collates information about marine ecosystems, focusing particularly on what has happened in the past year. It covers everything from water temperature, to fish, to fishing, to socio-economic dimensions.
But then I was terminated in February 2025, during my probationary period, because of the downsizing of the federal government. As soon as it seemed as if cuts were being made at other agencies, I felt vulnerable. It was very sudden — we had one hour’s notice, and we were not given severance pay.
Now, I work at an organization called ICES in Copenhagen. In some ways, it’s a counterpart of NOAA Fisheries. My work is in the same field, but in many ways the context is different.
How did you find your job in Denmark?
I knew that I needed to find a job quickly. In my field, a lot of the positions in the United States have historically been in the federal government, but that was no longer an option. There was a lot of uncertainty around US science funding, and research funding in general. It’s not that I was only looking abroad, but it’s also not unrelated that the first serious opportunities that came up were not in the United States. During that period, it seemed like everyone in my network was suffering a collective loss. People were really communicative — I was getting calls all the time from colleagues and friends just checking in. I happened to have connections to ICES — in my field, there’s a lot of crossover. Landing an interview happened organically.
I had also heard wonderful things about the organization and its work, as well as about the work culture in Denmark. It’s definitely different — employees’ life outside work is of high importance.
Another big draw was that I’d be able to continue doing the kinds of project that had been under way in the United States. I was interested in that work, and it seemed like the results would have had less impact in the US context.
In the United States, I did a lot of ecosystems-modelling work. I’m doing work on a similar project at ICES, but it involves many more ecosystems because the geographic scope is larger. Other parts of my work are more diverse in the sense that I also collaborate with groups that are doing the more standard fisheries-management work. For example, I have worked with a group of researchers who were estimating the amount of bycatch of protected and endangered species in European waters.
How has your time in Denmark been?
Office life is delightful. People take a lot of time to celebrate milestones and to celebrate each other, and they take their hobbies very seriously.
