Trump Fires All 22 Independent Board Members of National Science Foundation

The 22 members of the board were informed in an email on Friday that they had been “terminated, effective immediately.”

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The Trump administration has fired all board members of the National Science Foundation (NSF) without providing an explanation for the decision.

All 22 members, who are appointed by the US president and serve staggered six-year terms, received an email from the Presidential Personnel Office “on behalf of President Donald J Trump” on Friday informing them of their dismissal, according to media reports. They were told that their position had been “terminated, effective immediately,” but were not provided a reason.

The NSF is an independent federal agency founded by Congress in 1950. It supports academic research in fields like biology, computer science, math, and social sciences. The NSF board is tasked with publishing reports that help to guide the president and Congress on science and engineering policy. A report about the US ceding scientific ground to China was due to be released following a board meeting set for 5 May, Nature reported. It is unclear whether the report will be published.

‘No Surprise’

Affected and former board members told the media that they were “disappointed” by the unprecedented decision but not entirely surprised. “I think this is one more indication of the sweeping changes that the administration has in mind for the NSF,” Yolanda Gil, a terminated board member who works at the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California, told the Guardian.

Some Democrats have also come forward to denounce the move. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the US House of Representatives from California and the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, said it was “no surprise” that the president, who has openly criticized the foundation since taking office, “would seek to destroy the board that helps guide” it.

Science Under Attack

Since taking office in January 2025, Trump has executed a broad assault on science, erasing scientific data and slashing billions of dollars in funding for climate research.

In the early months of 2025, tens of thousands of federal workers were abruptly fired from agencies such as the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the EPA, the Forest Service, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Many of these employees were engaged in vital climate-related research and conservation work, as well as providing essential services like weather forecasting and wildlife monitoring.

The NSF was also affected, losing an estimated 40% of its members to cuts by the administration between January 2025 and February 2026. The Trump administration has also sought to cut $5 billion in funding to its budget last year, although Congress blocked it. Now that the board is gone, these cuts may be easier to execute, some former board members have warned.

Trump is also seeking to dismantle key research centers, including the Colorado-headquartered National Center for Atmospheric Research, which provides critical data on air quality, tools to improve aircraft safety, wildfire mitigation strategies, and forecasts for droughts, extreme precipitation events, and tropical cyclones. Another target is NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory, which has been collecting essential data on climate change, atmospheric composition, and air quality since the 1950s.

The White House also terminated funding for the US Global Change Research Program, the federal body responsible for producing the nation’s most comprehensive climate reports on the impacts of rising global temperatures. It also shut down climate.gov, NOAA’s primary public-facing website for climate science, and axed NOAA’s Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disaster dataset, which has provided vital information for first responders, the insurance industry, and researchers to plan recovery efforts and assess weather-related risks.

The cuts extended to international climate efforts as well. In February, the administration pulled the US out of global discussions regarding an upcoming global climate change assessment carried out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Trump also ordered federal scientists at NOAA and the US Global Change Research Program to cease all work related to IPCC climate assessments, effectively ending US involvement in one of the world’s most critical climate evaluation efforts.

Featured image: The White House/Flickr.