Trump fires independent board overseeing National Science Foundation | Trump administration
The Trump administration has fired members of an independent board that oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Members of the National Science Council received an email Friday from the presidential personnel office “on behalf of President Donald J Trump” stating that their positions were “terminated, effective immediately.”
“I wasn’t entirely surprised, to be honest,” said fired board member Keivan Stassun. Stassun, who works at Vanderbilt University, added that the decision was “extremely disappointing.”
The National Science Board was established in 1950 to advise the President and Congress on science and technology policy, approve major grants, and guide the future of the NSF.
It is generally composed of 25 members appointed by the president for staggered six-year terms. Licensed scientists come from academia and industry and specialize in fields such as astronomy, mathematics, chemistry and aerospace engineering.
All members of the current 22-person board of directors have been fired, according to fired member Yolanda Gil. The board had planned to meet in person next week and was finalizing a report on the state of American science, Gil said.
“I think this is a further indication of the sweeping changes the administration is planning for the NSF,” said Gil, who works at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Information Sciences.
Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said the move was “a dangerous attack on the institutions and expertise that drive American innovation and discovery.”
The Trump administration attempted to cut the science foundation’s $9 billion budget by more than half last year. Congress has maintained funding for the NSF, but a similar cut is again being considered for the coming year.
Without an advisory committee this time around, Stassun said, such cuts might be easier to implement.
This could “wipe out investments in basic research and in training the next generation of scientists and engineers for our country,” Stassun said.
The headquarters of the science foundation has also been moved to a smaller building. Last year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would move into the former NSF base in Alexandria, Virginia.
The National Science Foundation sent a request for comment to the White House. In a statement, the White House said the powers granted to the National Science Board when it was created may need to be updated. The work of the scientific foundation “continues without interruption,” the statement said.
