This article makes very clear Dan Carder initiated and was in charge of the project. The article also gives shout outs to the grad students Marc Besch and Arvind Thiruvengadam for driving, and quotes Hemanth Kappanna as saying that they they attributed the discrepancies to technical defects or design flaws in the cars rather than deliberate wrongdoing: "It was interesting, but we never thought it would blow the lid off Volkswagen. Never, ever." This now has become a thriller of a hero unmasking a fraud through diligent insight and breathtaking research. Who devised this study, directed it and did the key research?
Mentioned in today's article is that Kappanna helped fill out the grant application. OK, that's something. And that is "more than US citizens do in their lifetimes". I am not convinced that is true. I will agree though that most US citizens don't in their lifetimes do 12 years of college followed by a brief undistinguished 4 year career, all by age 41. Most people in the US who are 41 have worked more than that. Most people in the US don't have the privilege and opportunity to attend college for 12 years. Wouldn't you agree? Is this what you are referring to when you talk about US citizens doing far less? You clearly have sneering disregard and contempt for US citizens, which is a common position these days, particularly from people raised racist societies based on hate and systems of entitled generational privilege such as the caste system, in contrast to the US's culture and legal system which repudiates all of that, instead being the land of opportunity, with nearly all of the population descended from recent immigrants, coming from every nation and ethnic group on earth.
I don't have any disregard for Americans or for that matter for any person based on their nationality or religion. I used "Americans" since this about American immigration system.
I do have a problem people trying to diminish the credentials of a person whom they do not know and have no idea about circumstances of his professional or personal life. He did not get asked to publish in NYTimes. Many immigrants are returning to their home countries, how many have stories have you seen published ?
What he did in his grad school, mind you, is certainly much more than random immigrants or even US citizens do in their lifetimes.