The technology behind MRI scanners, cellphones, and LASIK eye surgery shares a common ancestor: grants from the National Science Foundation. On Friday, the board that steers that foundation — and with it, roughly $9 billion in annual federal research funding — was emptied out entirely.

Scientists and engineers on the National Science Board received letters from the Presidential Personnel Office telling them their positions were terminated, effective immediately. Screenshots shared with The Washington Post show identical boilerplate text: “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I’m writing to inform you that your position as a member of the National Science Board is terminated, effective immediately.”

No justification was offered.

Keivan Stassun, a Vanderbilt University astronomer and physicist who joined the board in 2022, confirmed that at least a third of his colleagues had received the email when he first spoke to reporters. Multiple sources subsequently confirmed that all 24 members had been dismissed.

What the Board Actually Does

The National Science Board was established by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950. It is not a partisan talking shop. Its members — up to 25 scientists and engineers drawn from universities and industry — serve six-year staggered terms, appointed by the president but explicitly designed to outlast any single administration.

The board has two jobs. First, it sets the NSF’s strategic direction, approves major expenditures — things like the construction of Antarctic research vessels — and holds the foundation to rigorous intellectual standards. Second, it provides independent advice to the president and Congress on the health of the entire US research and innovation enterprise.

Marvi Matos Rodriguez, a senior vice president working on fusion energy who has served on the board since 2022, described the commitment involved. “I serve the board at nights and on weekends,” she told The Post. “The idea of having six-year terms is you get to do something significant, impactful and go beyond administrations, political administrations.”

She received one of the termination letters on Friday.

A Foundation Already Running on Empty

The mass dismissal does not land in a vacuum. The NSF has been without a permanent director since Sethuraman Panchanathan resigned in April 2025 — more than a year ago. In March 2026, Trump nominated Jim O’Neill to lead the foundation, but O’Neill has not yet faced a congressional hearing.

In the meantime, the agency has been battered. More than 1,000 active research grants were cancelled last year, according to IBTimes UK. The administration proposed a 55 per cent budget cut to the foundation — a figure Congress rejected — before proposing deep reductions again for fiscal year 2027.

Without a confirmed director or a functioning board, the NSF now lacks both operational leadership and strategic oversight. Barbara R. Snyder, president of the Association of American Universities, put it plainly: the foundation is “rudderless at the very time when clear direction and strategic oversight for the NSF are essential to maintaining America’s global scientific leadership.”

A Pattern, Not an Isolated Event

The NSB dismissals fit a broader pattern. Last April, 38 experts were removed from National Institutes of Health oversight boards — the majority of them Black or Hispanic professionals, according to IBTimes UK. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently dismissed 17 members of a federal vaccine advisory committee, a move a federal judge later deemed improper.

Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Science Committee, did not mince words. “This is the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to harm science and American innovation,” she said in a statement. “Will the president fill the NSB with MAGA loyalists who won’t stand up to him as he hands over our leadership in science to our adversaries?”

Lofgren’s question about replacements cuts to the structural concern. The board’s independence is its entire purpose. If replacements are selected for political loyalty rather than scientific distinction, the advisory function collapses.

The Signal Beyond US Borders

The international consequences may prove as significant as the domestic ones. Snyder noted that China is investing heavily in science and has matched or surpassed the United States in several key fields. Dismantling the NSB’s independent voice, she argued, “sends exactly the wrong signal.”

That signal is already being received. International researchers who collaborate with US institutions — and the foreign governments that fund them — make long-term investment decisions based on the assumption that American science is stable, peer-reviewed, and politically insulated. Removing the oversight board of a $9 billion research agency in a single email does not reinforce that assumption.

Stassun, the Vanderbilt physicist, questioned whether the timing was coincidental — the board has been actively advising Congress about the necessity of maintaining robust scientific investments. Whether the dismissals were retaliation or simply indifference, the effect is the same: the United States’ primary mechanism for independent scientific counsel to the executive branch now sits empty.

It is not clear whether new appointments will be made, or on what timeline. The NSF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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