The board submits the agency’s budget proposal to Congress each year and approves its research project awards. The foundation was established by federal law in 1950 to support peer-reviewed research that fosters best practices in the science and engineering fields. 

The White House initially provided no reason for the terminations but has since claimed that board members were fired to align with a 2021 Supreme Court decision, U.S. v. Arthrex, in which the court "raised constitutional questions about whether non-Senate confirmed appointees can exercise the authorities that Congress gave the National Science Foundation Board," according to news reports. Board members are presidentially appointed but not confirmed by the U.S. Senate. 

In an email to ENR, Yolanda Gil, one fired board member, called the action "unprecedented," and said the board had been set to vote May 5 on release of a "critical" report on science and engineering Indicators of 2026. 

"I think this is one more indication of the sweeping changes that the administration has in mind for the [foundation]," said Gil, who is a principal scientist of the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute, a research professor of computer science in its Viterbi School of Engineering and a Fellow and former 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 that has been vacant for a year —Brian Stone, currently chief of staff, is serving in that role. The nominee for the position is James O’Neill, a former Health and Human Services Dept. official in the Trump administration who has been a managing director at venture capital firm Mithril Capital Management. No U.S. Senate confirmation hearing date has been announced, but if approved, he would be the first foundation chief with no science or engineering background and little experience in managing a large research organization..

Implications for Engineering

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the decimation of the former advisory board could have a significant impact on the types of funding decisions that support seismic shake tests, tsunami and hurricane wave laboratories, mobile soil and foundation testing systems and open data platforms such as 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 due to funding and programs" from the foundation, said the group's president Marsha Bomar, in a statement. “Our understanding of how to safeguard 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 administration efforts to interfere with advisory boards and agencies designed to promote factual scientific information to agencies they serve. 

President Donald Trump filled one-quarter of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board seats with representatives of the chemical industry, which the agency regulates. Additionally, the U.S. Energy Dept. established a panel, the Climate Working Group, which was staffed by scientists with views on climate change that conflict with views of 80% of the global scientific community. The working group stated that climate change effects are overstated. Their conclusions were the basis for EPA’s decision to repeal its Endangerment Finding, which has been the legal basis for much of federal regulation designed to reduce carbon emissions. The action is now being challenged in court.

“Alarmingly, firing of the qualified and vetted members of the National Science Board clears a path for the Trump administration to appoint conflicted and unqualified individuals in their stead, who could provide political cover for [it] to avoid science-based and mission-aligned decisions" at the foundation, Goldman said in an April 26 blog. 

Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, said in a statement that the board terminations represent “a dangerous attack on the institutions and expertise that drive American innovation and discovery.” 

The firings come at a time when the administration proposed more than a 50% budget cut to the foundation for fiscal 2027, cutting support for engineering programs by 82%, according to the Science and Community Impacts Mapping Project Data Analysis Team based at the University of Maryland, College Park. 

The funding cuts, coupled with the terminations, “signals a reckless disregard for the scientific enterprise and the universities and broader innovation ecosystem that anchor our nation’s competitiveness,” Cantwell said. 

The Maryland mapping project estimated the funding cuts alone could lead to $16.9 billion in lost economic activity, based on the widely held assumption that every $1 invested in federal nondefense research and development funding generates $2.64 in economic activity. 

CORRECTION added: The foundation has been without a director for one year, not two.