As a neuroscientist, Nancy Kanwisher lives in a world of uncertainty. That’s the nature of science—its progress depends on navigating the space between the known and the unknown. Clarity is temporary; every insight prompts more complicated questions. For over four decades, Kanwisher has navigated scientific uncertainty with creativity and perseverance.
But due to the recent funding cuts to the scientific system in the United States, the uncertainty isn’t just about data or discovery. It’s about whether she’ll have a lab at all.
Over the years, Nancy’s lab at MIT has made foundational contributions to cognitive neuroscience—most famously, the discovery of the Fusiform Face Area, the part of the brain responsible for facial recognition. In 2024, she was awarded the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience, a global honor often considered neuroscience’s equivalent to the Nobel.
I’ve seen Nancy navigate uncertainty up close. For three years, I was part of a team in her lab studying the neural basis of causal reasoning—the kind of thinking that helps us understand how one thing leads to another. Even though it’s central to both science and everyday life, surprisingly little is known about how it manifests in the brain. Our team would meet weekly in Nancy’s office to puzzle through our latest crop of problems. Were our experimental stimuli sharp enough to tease apart the kind of thought we were interested in? Were our results capturing something meaningful or just noise?
Due to the recent funding cuts to the scientific system in the United States, the uncertainty isn’t just about data or discovery. It’s about whether she’ll have a lab at all.
We chiseled away at the questions, one experiment at a time. Some meetings ended in quiet shrugs. Others sparked new ideas we couldn’t wait to test. Through it all, Nancy was sharp, precise, and skeptical. She challenged every assumption, poked holes in our reasoning, but also made space for messy, ambitious ideas—so long as they could eventually be tested.
It was in that lab, immersed in uncertainty, that I learned how to navigate it—not as something to avoid, but as a space to ask better questions. Now, as a graduate student in science journalism at MIT, I still live in the space between the known and unknown. Because journalism, like science, is rooted in curiosity, built on skepticism, and designed to help us make sense of the world around us.
Lately, I find myself trying to make sense of the rapid changes upending science in the U.S. If someone like Nancy—tenured, decorated and leading a lab at one of the most well-funded research institutions in the world—is preparing for the possibility that her lab might not survive, what does that mean for everyone else? For smaller institutions without endowments to cushion the blow? For early-career researchers on their first grant cycle? For students still deciding whether a career in science is worth the risk?
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These questions reflect the breadth of the crisis unfolding across the scientific community in the U.S. Since January, the Trump administration has aggressively moved to unravel the federal support system that has sustained American science for nearly 80 years. There has been a barrage of executive directives over the past two months, including freezing billions in scientific funding, laying off workers across federal scientific agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health, and National Science Foundation (NSF), and attempts to limit and control what scientists say and how they say it. These aren’t isolated policy shifts—they represent a systematic dismantling of the post–World War II research infrastructure.
It is this infrastructure that has driven America’s scientific progress. It was built on the powerful idea that the government should invest in basic research and that universities should serve as incubators for discovery. This created a strong link between public funding and academic research, with agencies like the NIH and NSF funneling billions into universities to support scientific research and innovation. In return, universities trained generations of scientists, produced world-changing breakthroughs, and helped the U.S. maintain its global edge in innovation. From MRI technology to mRNA vaccines to immunotherapy, many of the scientific advancements we now consider essential are a product of this ecosystem.
No one claims it is a perfect system. Scientists have pointed to a range of possible reforms, including shifting toward long-term, flexible funding models that reduce the burden of constant grant applications, making the grant-making process more transparent, and increasing support for replication studies to strengthen scientific reliability. But gutting the scientific ecosystem without offering viable alternatives isn’t reform—it could be setting the stage for collapse.
Here are some of the ways science in the U.S. is being upended.
Shortly after Trump took office, his administration ordered a broad freeze on federal funding and issued a raft of executive orders, all of which disrupted the budgets and operations of the NIH and the NSF—two of the country’s largest funders of scientific research. At the NIH, although a federal judge temporarily blocked the action, the administration found a procedural loophole to get around these rulings, putting around 16,000 grant applications in limbo and delaying $1.5 billion in potential research support.
Gutting the scientific ecosystem without offering viable alternatives isn’t reform—it could be setting the stage for collapse.
Additionally, the NIH threatened a cap on indirect cost support for grants that universities receive at 15 percent, a significant reduction from the typical 30 percent to 70 percent they receive currently. Indirect costs cover essential expenses such as facility maintenance, utilities, and administrative support. Judge Angel Kelley of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts temporarily blocked the administration’s attempt to enforce the cap. But many universities began scaling back their budgets and hiring plans in response.
The administration has also introduced ideological filters that shape which science gets funded. Columbia University recently lost $400 million in federal funding—revoked in retaliation for its handling of campus protests—much of it related to scientific research. Grant applications now risk rejection for using terms like “diversity,” “equity,” or even “climate.” Entire areas of research—like vaccine hesitancy and transgender health—are being quietly stripped of support, part of a broader effort to defund work that doesn’t align with the administration’s political agenda.
Many of the actions above have disrupted the pipeline of people who make science possible—graduate students, postdocs, lab managers, research coordinators, technicians. Large research universities like the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Washington, and the University of Southern California have cut or hit pause on admissions to many of their graduate programs. For aspiring researchers, the path forward is suddenly obscured. These programs are more than academic stepping stones—they’re the foundation of the nation’s scientific workforce. And as they shrink, so too does the pipeline of talent that fuels discovery, innovation, and the country’s high global standing in research.
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In late February, a message pinged my old lab group chat. One of my former lab mates asked, “Are u all planning to go to the rally at the Statehouse?” The rally was Stand Up for Science. Founded by three graduate students, Stand Up For Science was set to take place on Friday, March 6, with a main rally in Washington, D.C. and over 30 additional demonstrations in cities across the United States. The aim was to protest the cuts to scientific funding, raise public awareness about the importance of evidence-based policymaking, and advocate for the protection of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives within the scientific community.
In Boston, the rally was to be held in the Boston Common, a historic site that has long served as a stage for public discourse and activism.
On Friday, March 7, I made my way to the rally alongside a handful of others from MIT. As we were crossing the Charles River, a former lab colleague—a postdoctoral fellow now navigating the academic job market—pulled his jacket tighter against the wind and turned to me. “So,” he asked, “are you moving to Paraguay?”
It was a serious question. My parents immigrated to the U.S. so I could have access to the kind of education that wasn’t possible in Paraguay, our home country. Ironically, as the U.S. waged war on its own scientific institutions, I had been offered a (relatively) well-paying academic job in Paraguay’s capital, Asunción—one of the few stable options left if things here continued to unravel. I told him I wasn’t sure yet. The academic infrastructure there lagged years behind the U.S., but at least there was stability, and plenty of opportunity to do meaningful work.
He nodded, understanding. He was in a similar situation, weighing an offer to become director of a newly established neuroscience institute in India.
We aren’t the only ones thinking about a future abroad. Universities around the world have started noticing a surge in interest from U.S. scientists—part of what some are calling a potential American “brain drain,” as researchers look for opportunities abroad in the face of deep cuts and political volatility at home. France is launching a “Safe Place for Science” program. Australia is flirting with fast-track visas. A recent Nature poll found that 75 percent of U.S.-based scientists who responded are considering leaving the country in search of opportunities abroad. However, if too many researchers leap at once, the global system may not have the capacity to absorb them, and an entire generation of scientific talent could slip through the cracks.
So there we were, debating whether we would have to pursue our scientific careers in another country, on our way to advocate for science in America.
By the time we reached the Common, hundreds of scientists, students, and activists were already gathered across from the Massachusetts State House. “Fund science like your life depends on it—because it does,” one attendee’s sign read. Another sent an S.O.S.: “Save Our Science.” The mood wasn’t angry. This was worse. It was an eerie, unsettled kind of dread.
The rally kicked off with speeches from lawmakers and prominent scientists, each underscoring what was at stake.
Boston City Councilor Sharon Durkan warned that these federal cuts were an economic threat. Her district, home to Harvard Medical School and a constellation of affiliated hospitals and research institutes, was bracing for a potential “mini-recession.”
Nobel laureate and Harvard economist Eric Maskin pointed out that a 10 percent increase in federal research spending translates to a 0.6 percent bump in GDP. That’s a 100 percent return on investment, virtually unheard of in any other sector. Even if you strip away the idealism—the pursuit of knowledge, the betterment of humanity—funding science still makes cold, hard economic sense.
Nancy Kanwisher spoke at the rally too. She told the crowd that federal funding for science was being gutted and with it, the basic research that forms the foundation for future breakthroughs. “That is how basic research works,” she said. “We learn fundamental things about nature, then build on that understanding to solve medical and technical problems.” Then she paused. “What we’re witnessing is an ongoing, shockingly rapid dismantling of American science.”
So there we were, debating whether we would have to pursue our scientific careers in another country, on our way to advocate for science in America.
Nancy turned her attention to those who make discoveries possible. “Science isn’t some elite pursuit reserved for the privileged,” she said. “It welcomes anyone driven to understand how the universe works and to use that knowledge to help others.”
She spoke of her own lab: “Some of the very best work has come from veterans, immigrants, and students who grew up below the poverty line.”
My chest tightened. I thought about my own path. It was paved by programs designed to open doors for people like me. I was a post-bacc in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department—a fully funded, two-year research program created to support aspiring scientists from underrepresented backgrounds. For me, it wasn’t just an academic initiative, it was a lifeline. And now, programs like it are being dismissed as handouts rather than investments.
As the event wrapped up, I called an Uber. A Tesla pulled up—irony on wheels. The technology in the car was made possible by the U.S. research ecosystem, and the company has received a number of government benefits and subsidies over the years. Yet the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, is now part of the movement to defund the very infrastructure that helped make the cars possible.
The driver was outgoing, a Boston native with a thick accent, and as we pulled away from the Common, he gestured toward the thinning crowd.
“What was all that about?”
“We were standing up for science,” I told him.
He let out a loud, incredulous laugh. “Why the hell would you need to do that?”
I almost laughed too, assuming sarcasm, but he was serious. He genuinely had no idea. And just like that, my bubble popped. Here was someone who drives a Tesla because he wants to be eco-friendly. He’s vegan, votes regularly, and yet, he had no idea what was happening to science in the U.S. It was disorienting. If someone like him—politically engaged, eco-conscious, presumably reading the news—doesn’t realize the extent of the consequences, how many others are similarly unaware?
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A few days after the rally, Nancy spoke at an exclusive gathering of billionaires and corporate magnates in Naples, Florida who had come to hear about advances in science and technology. After detailing her research, Nancy delivered a difficult message at the very end of her talk: science in America is on life support.
A wealthy CEO approached her afterward, smiling reassuringly. “You don’t need to worry,” he told her. “It’s just a little pause. Things will go back to normal.”
Nancy isn’t one to hold her tongue. “What if someone told you to stop eating for six months?” she asked him. “But don’t worry, after that, you can go back to regular meals.”
Nancy now ends her talks with a call to action: pressure lawmakers, protect universities, restore funding before the damage becomes irreparable.
But maybe the first step is making sure people realize the fight is happening at all.
My worry is that to those outside of the scientific community (and to an extent those inside too), science appears robust and untouchable—a steady flow of breakthroughs and discoveries that continues regardless of political turmoil. But in reality, the infrastructure that supports science is delicate and dependent on sustained investment.
We are going to feel the effects of this disruption—of slashed funding, lost talent, and stalled research—for years to come. You can’t derail an entire generation of researchers and expect them to return when funding comes back. You can’t pause crucial experiments and pick them up years later as if nothing happened. Scientific progress isn’t a faucet that can simply be turned on and off.