The Trump administration has moved to dismiss the members of the National Science Board, which governs the National Science Foundation. Dismissed members say the agency’s independence is threatened.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The Trump administration continues to batter federal science agencies. A few days ago it dismissed the members of a board charged with overseeing and advising the National Science Foundation. That’s a major funder of research. NPR’s Katia Riddle reports on what that means for the agency going forward.
KATIA RIDDLE, BYLINE: On Friday, 22 people, mostly scientists and engineers, each received a terse email written on behalf of President Donald J. Trump. Their position as a member of the National Science Board was terminated, quote, “effective immediately.”
KEIVAN STASSUN: You know, it was a huge disappointment. I wouldn’t say that it was a big surprise.
RIDDLE: Keivan Stassun was one of the recipients of this email. He’s a professor of physics and astronomy at Vanderbilt University. He’s been on the board since 2023.
STASSUN: Having observed what’s been happening across other agencies, it seemed like just a matter of time.
RIDDLE: The Trump administration has ended or frozen billions of dollars in research grants and reduced the federal science workforce.
ZOE LOFGREN: I am, once again, disappointed by the president and his attack on the science enterprise of this country.
RIDDLE: Representative Zoe Lofgren is the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Her Republican equivalent, Brian Babin, defended Trump’s decision and said in a statement that, quote, “every president expects advisers to serve in a manner consistent with executive and legislative priorities.” Lofgren points out that since this board was established in 1950, it has served under 14 presidents.
LOFGREN: And all of a sudden there’s a problem? I don’t buy it.
RIDDLE: The board was intended to guide the nation in making decisions about what kind of science to pursue. Patrick McCray is a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara. He studies the history of science policy.
PATRICK MCCRAY: I mean, I think the whole idea was to have a body of people that were not directly connected to the executive branch.
RIDDLE: Working autonomously in recent decades, NSF helped to build the early internet, fueled the rise of artificial intelligence and backed the observatory that first detected gravitational waves.
MCCRAY: The expertise and the ability to decide which areas of research and development are more important to fund than others, you know, is crucial here.
RIDDLE: The Trump administration responded to a request for comment with an email statement, writing that the agency’s work would continue, quote, “uninterrupted.” Historian Patrick McCray says dismantling the National Science Board is not in the best interests of either the nation or Trump. The administration has repeatedly said it is committed to advancements in fields like AI or quantum computing, but…
MCCRAY: It’s hard for me to understand how continually attacking organizations like the National Science Foundation advances those goals.
RIDDLE: A science board may not sound glamorous, says Patrick McCray, but some of our groundbreaking scientific achievements – AI, the internet, microchips – may never have happened without it. Katia Riddle, NPR News.
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