Answer to Question #4829 Submitted to "Ask the Experts"

I am not a U.S. citizen or green card holder. I have a master's degree in nuclear applications. I would like to do my PhD studies in health physics in the United States. Will there be any problem with citizenship (or is U.S. citizenship mandatory) to work in the United States in the health physics field after PhD studies?

Let me answer your question in parts.

Part one—will there be any difficulty studying health physics in the United States if you are not a citizen? The answer is no. As long as you can obtain the appropriate student visa to enter the country, citizenship is not an issue in academic arenas. However, sometimes faculty have grants or contracts sponsored by organizations like DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), which almost universally forbid non-U.S. citizens from being supported under the project funding. Effectively, being a non-U.S. citizen may limit some opportunities for graduate school support. This is not very typical and, on the grand scheme of things, is not a very big issue.

Part two—is a partial answer to your question "can I work in the United States after graduation with a PhD?" The partial part is this—if individuals make arrangements under their F-1 visa at least 90 days before they plan to go to work and at least 10 days before they graduate, they are almost always given permission to work up to one year in a training position.

Part three of my answer applies to the post-graduation long-term employment situation. The first iteration of this could be an H1-B which allows work up to six years, but requires some amount of effort from your employer. The alternate to this, which allows one to work indefinitely, is the green card which can come from either efforts of your employer or as a consequence of marrying a U.S. citizen. The effort from your employer is not trivial. The employer must verify that the work could or would not be performed by an equally qualified American citizen. This requires obtaining documents and posting public notice. Both of these are an effort and an expense. Further, in the field of health physics, there are some jobs which either require U.S. citizenship or that one is a naturalized citizen. These jobs are a portion of the overall job market that would not be available to noncitizens. These represent a small fraction of the overall pool and probably do not substantially impact the total number of opportunities available.

One useful source which authoritatively speaks to these issues is the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

I thank Idaho State University's Michelle Lewis for her explanation of these things.

Richard R. Brey, PhD, CHP