On the cover

Our eighth annual careers issue explores the relationships and larger forces that help scientists forge their professional paths. Relationships nurtured through networking have an outsize role when a scientist embarks on a career (page 32). Stories of how dual-career couples have navigated the “two-body problem” may inspire others in that situation (page 38). Transgender and nonbinary scientists must consider additional factors that can restrict their career mobility (page 23). And the funding, visa, and employment uncertainties affecting the physics community today have notable parallels with the jobs crisis of the early 1970s (page 46). (Design by Masie Chong with artwork adapted from iStock.com artists Yutthana Gaetgeaw and Irina Shilnikova.)