Banned Swiss-based scientist arrives in US
A Swiss-based Iranian scientist has arrived in the United States to take up her post at Harvard. The scientist had been stopped from flying there twice by the Trump ban on visitors from some Muslim-majority countries.
Samira Asgari arrived in Boston on Friday evening Swiss time. She made the journey from Frankfurt.
Asgari was welcomed there by a delegation of Harvard colleagues and by lawyers.
Iranian #HarvardExternal link scientist Samira Asgari arrives in Boston after 3x barred: "I'm still shaking" @thecrimsonExternal link pic.twitter.com/FnPAEt6zPSExternal link
— Hannah Natanson (@hannah_natanson) February 3, 2017External link
The scientist expressed her relief in a tweet.
Thank you Massachusetts. And I Hope more stories end happily like mine.
— Samira Asgari (@samsam_86) February 4, 2017External link
Asgari had filed suit in a US federal court in Massachusetts on Thursday, seeking to compel the Trump administration to allow her to fill the post she was offered at a Harvard Medical School lab.
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Swiss-based scientist sues Trump as ex-US envoy blasts policy
AsgariExternal link twice tried to fly to the US to take the new job she was offered.
Iranian national Asgari holds a doctorate degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFLExternal link), where she had been working as a research biologist.
She is an expert in genomics, infectious diseases, and computational biology.
In October 2016, she won a Swiss National Science Foundation grant to enable her to study in Boston.
Dr. Soumya Raychaudhuri, a scientist and physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, had recruited Asgari last year to join his world-renowned human genomics labExternal link, which is studying the role of human genetic variation in tuberculosis progression.
Meanwhile, a US federal judge in Seattle has issued a temporary nationwide block on President Donald Trump’s ban on travellers from seven mainly Muslim nations. it has been reported.
The White House issued a statement late Friday announcing that the Department of Justice would file an emergency halt of judge’s order.
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