The Trump administration’s abrupt firing of the entire 22-member National Science Foundation board could have a chilling effect on the research that informs engineering standards and scientific understanding — the basis of civil infrastructure and building design, according to several sources critical of the April 24 action.
The presidentially appointed board, which at full capacity has 25 members drawn mostly from academia and industry, but also with some representation from nonprofit associations and national laboratories, advises the foundation, considered an independent federal agency independent of the executive branch, on its direction and funding priorities. The council presents the agency’s budget proposal to Congress each year and approves awards for its research projects. The foundation was established by federal law in 1950 to support peer-reviewed research to foster best practices in the fields of science and engineering.
The White House initially did not provide a reason for the terminations, but has since said the board members were fired to align with a 2021 Supreme Court decision. USA v. Arthrexin which the court “raised constitutional questions about whether non-Senate confirmed appointees can exercise the authorities Congress gave the National Science Foundation Board,” according to news reports. Board members are presidentially appointed but not confirmed by the US Senate.
In an email to ENR, Yolanda Gil, a fired board member, called the action “unprecedented” and said the board was scheduled to vote May 5 on the release of a “critical” report on the 2026 science and engineering indicators.
“I think this is another indication of the radical changes that the administration has in mind [foundation]said Gil, also a principal scientist at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Information Sciences, a research professor of computer science at its Viterbi School of Engineering, and a member and past president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. She was appointed to the board in 2024 for a six-year term by President Joe Biden.
In the absence of a permanent director at NSF, a position vacant for two years, Brian Stone, currently chief of staff, fills that position. The nominee for the position is Jim O’Neill, who has no background in research or science, but has worked in the finance and investment industry.
Implications for engineering
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According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the demise of the former advisory board could have a significant impact on the types of funding decisions that support seismic shaking testing, tsunami and hurricane wave laboratories, mobile soil and foundation testing systems and open data platforms like DesignSafe.
“The resilience of our built environment, its ability to withstand and recover from extreme weather events or environmental catastrophes such as floods, earthquakes, wildfires or tornadoes, has advanced tremendously thanks to funding and programs” from the foundation, the group’s president, Marsha Bomar, said in a statement. “Our understanding of how to protect buildings, roads, bridges and more against seismic events or how these structures will fare over many years of use is largely the result of [foundation] support”.
Erosion of science
Gretchen Goldman, president and CEO of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the board firings represent the latest in a series of efforts by the administration to interfere with advisory boards and agencies designed to promote real scientific information to the agencies they serve.
President Donald Trump filled a quarter of the seats on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board with representatives from the chemical industry, which regulates the agency. In addition, the US Department of Energy established a group, the Climate Task Force. which was made up of scientists with views on climate change that conflicted with the views of 80% of the world’s scientific community. The working group stated that the effects of climate change are exaggerated. Its findings were the basis of the EPA’s decision to repeal its endangerment finding, which has been the legal basis for much of the federal regulation designed to reduce carbon emissions. The action is now contested in court.
“Alarmingly, the firing of qualified and vetted members of the National Science Board clears the way for the Trump administration to appoint conflicted and unqualified people in their place, who could provide political cover to [it] to prevent science-based, mission-aligned decisions” at the foundation, Goldman said in an April 26 blog post.
Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said in a statement that the board’s layoffs represent “a dangerous attack on the institutions and expertise that drive American innovation and discovery.”
The layoffs come as the administration proposed a more than 50 percent budget cut to the foundation for fiscal year 2027, slashing support for engineering programs by 82 percent, according to the data analysis team for the Science and Community Impact Mapping Project based at the University of Maryland, College Park.
The funding cuts, along with the terminations, “signal a reckless disregard for the scientific enterprise and universities and the broader innovation ecosystem that anchor our nation’s competitiveness,” Cantwell said.
The Maryland Mapping Project estimated that funding cuts alone could result in a loss of $16.9 billion in economic activity, based on the widely held assumption that every dollar invested in federal non-military research and development funding generates $2.64 in economic activity.
