Video: Keeping the faith

Science has always relied on young innovators to drive progress. In 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, still PhD students, founded Google. More recently, in 2020 and 2021, Kizzmekia Corbett, then a senior research fellow at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Vaccine Research Center, led a team of scientists in developing the COVID-19 vaccine in under a year. These breakthroughs remind us that scientific advancement depends on nurturing a full pipeline of scientists—from young people learning about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) to early-career researchers preparing the next transformative discovery.

Yet today, that pipeline is at risk with recent funding cuts. President Trump has aggressively scaled back government spending, promising to “get more bang for America’s research bucks.” In just nine short months, the administration canceled 7,737 research grants, totaling $8 billion from the NIH and the National Science Foundation (NSF). As a result, early-career scientists are leaving the field – what The Economist calls an “academic brain drain.” STEM programs for K-12 students are diminishing due to insufficient funding, despite evidence that early exposure to science motivates students to pursue STEM careers.