Prestigious advisor in a good state school or reapply to another place?

[EngineerGrad]

Hi folks,

I'm currently a second year grad student in the best school of my state. My advisor is pretty famous and very well established in the field. We have one publicatipn together, one under review, and one in the manuscript stage. He is a wonderful adviser and I truly enjoy his mentoring. The problem is that my lab recently got a new grant and the work we'll be doing is restricted by the funding agency, which means that only U.S. Citizens are allowed to work in this project. Since I am a foreign national, I was moved to a different room and am now isolated from the rest of my research group. Because my advisor is pretty well established, securing funding for me was not a problem, for which I am really happy. The thing is that this new arrangement turned out to be fairly annoying and the feeling of not belonging in this lab started to grow on me. There's a lot of interesting work that I am simply not allowed to do anymore, and I overall just feel like stepping on egg shells with my research.

i started to consider looking to apply to other schools, but am afraid I won't find such an inspirational mentor. I am stuck in this limbo where I enjoy my mentor, but not my current working situation. I also cringe when thinking about having to go through grad applications all over again. What should I do? Suck it up and finish my PhD here or move elsewhere and risk having a better working situation with a not so great advisor?

Any help is appreciated...

[knp]

I'm sorry that happened to you. Can you talk to your mentor about it? He might have ideas on how to fix the problems that have arisen if you raise them specifically.