Untitled Scientist Project

Gang Chen was born in China and came to the U.S. in 1989. He earned a PhD from UC Berkeley and went on to head the mechanical engineering department at MIT, where his work centered on heat transfer and energy conversion. In 2021, he was arrested, accused of hiding affiliations with Chinese government institutions while securing millions of dollars in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy. His high-profile case was part of the Department of Justice’s China Initiative, which combatted China-related economic espionage.

In an ongoing debate over national security and academic freedom, law enforcement officials claim that cutting-edge knowledge is often clandestinely transferred to China. Scientists argue that global problems mandate international collaboration, while historians cite a Cold War era when scientific knowledge was often treated as a state asset.

One year later, the government drops the case against Gang and discontinues the China Initiative in name. They deny racial bias but acknowledge the fear created in the Asian American community. Gang returns to his lab, though most of his student researchers had left, and avoids applying for government funding out of fear. He joins a group of Asian American scientists advocating for academic freedom and equality, and is later elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

The film foregrounds many unanswerable questions. Can Gang Chen continue his research with limited resources in a climate of national scrutiny and fear? Where is the boundary between national security and academic freedom? Can science transcend political borders?