THE STATE OF THE NSF

WHAT A DISTRESSING HEADLINE: “Two Top NSF Officials Are Leaving. In an Agency Under Trump’s Thumb, It May Not Matter,” AAAS Science, October 21, 2026. Jeffrey Mervis reports: “Brian Stone and Rebecca Keiser are leaving as unofficial head and chief of staff.”

Here are tidbits gleaned from this and related articles, together with my usual Internet sleuthing. (Neither here nor there: My M.A. and Ph.D. in mathematics were supported by NASA grants, not NSF.)

Background. Wikipedia describes, “The United States National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering.”

Wikipedia—and I—stress an “independent” agency. Alas, in its Timeline history citing NSF’s 1950 founding, the period 2010-2019 includes, “In early 2018, it was announced that Trump would cut NSF Research Funding by 30% but quickly rescinded this due to backlash.” And in 2020-present, it notes, “On April 28, 2026, President Donald Trump fired all 24 members of the foundation’s governing board.”

So Much For Independence. “During normal times at the National Science Foundation (NSF),” Mervis recounts, “the pending retirement of its acting head after 18 months without a permanent director would suggest the $9 billion research agency is adrift and leaderless. But these are not normal times. NSF has been taking orders from the White House since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, a top-down relationship that precipitated the resignation of Sethuraman Panchanathan as director in April 2025.”

“To NSF observers,” Mervis continues, “yesterday’s announcement by Brian Stone that he is retiring at the end of the year simply means the agency will continue to follow directives from Michael Kratsios, head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and his deputy, Ethan Klein, on how to spend its research dollars.”

Another Civil Servant Gone. Mervis observes, “Research advocates give Stone credit for keeping the agency afloat under Trump. ‘Brian Stone is a committed civil servant who did his best under impossible circumstances,’ says Keivan Stassun, an astrophysicist at Vanderbilt University and member of the National Science Board, NSF’s oversight body until Trump fired all its members in April. ‘It’s not surprising that more good people of conscience are unable to tolerate the untenable positions they’ve been thrust into.’ ”

“In March,” Mervis relates, “Trump nominated investment banker James O’Neill to be NSF’s 16th director. The Senate has yet to act on the nomination, which expires at the end of the current session of Congress in December.”

One suspects that this investment banker wouldn’t find confirmation under the post-midterm Congress.

Trump’s Policy Directives. Mervis recounts, “But the White House has so far managed to exercise control over the agency without the need for any political appointees to work there. Instead, it has used presidential orders and policy directives from OMB Director Russell Vought to shift money away from areas such as climate change and social science and toward technology, especially artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing.”

No surprise, this: To Trump, climate change is “a hoax.” And the social sciences are riddled with woke-addled lunatic thinking, right?

Well, Perhaps Not. Adam Sella reports, “Scientists Sue to Block Trump Administration Changes at Science Foundation,” The New York Times, November 9, 2026:  “The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Massachusetts, seeks to block the N.S.F. from dismantling its social science funding division, known as the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences. The division is ‘dedicated to understanding human behavior and improving people’s quality of life,’ according to the science foundation’s website, and it typically funds research in topics ranging from brain mapping to economics.”

Sella continues, “Closing the division would ‘devastate social, behavioral and economic sciences in the United States,’ the lawsuit said. ‘Without that funding, hundreds of promising research projects directed to the pressing problems of our time—from the use and effects of artificial intelligence to child development in the age of social media—will never proceed,’ the suit added.”

Administration “Priorities.” Sella observes, “In the 2026 fiscal year, which ended in September, the science foundation withheld over $1 billion that Congress had intended to fund research across the agency in favor of administration priorities, which officials have said include artificial intelligence and quantum technology.”

Sella quotes Jon Freeman, a psychology professor at Columbia University and a board member for the Federaton of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences: “It’s really important that the research be funded. The American people will ultimately pay the price if  the social sciences division is dismantled in terms of the discoveries never made and the lives never improved for the better.”

See also Daniel Garisto’s “Researchers Sue to Block NFS From Demolishing Social Science Directorate,” Science, November 9, 2026. Garisto adds, “Judges have previously ruled against NSF for terminating grants and attempting to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research.” ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2026