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The head of the US National Science Foundation, a $9 billion agency charged with advancing discoveries across the scientific spectrum, resigned Thursday amid sweeping changes spearheaded by the current Trump administration.
NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan has led the agency since he was selected by President Donald Trump during his first term and unanimously confirmed by the Senate in June 2020.
“I believe I have done all I can to advance the critical mission of the agency and feel that it is time for me to pass the baton to new leadership,” Panchanathan said in parting remarks, which were provided to CNN on Thursday by an agency spokesperson.
The director’s departure comes as the National Science Foundation is grappling with demands from the new Trump administration and DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency, an effort established in January to slash government spending.
“This is a pivotal moment for our nation in terms of global competitiveness,” Panchanathan said in the statement. “NSF is an extremely important investment to make U.S. scientific dominance a reality. We must not lose our competitive edge.”
The federal agency announced earlier this month that it would cancel hundreds of grants totaling more than $230 million. The terminations included — but were not limited to — research related to “diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and misinformation/disinformation,” according to information released by the NSF.
The Trump administration issued a series of executive orders earlier this year demanding federal agencies cease activities related to promoting DEI.
The canceled grants included those titled with phrases such as “Racial Equity in STEM,” “Antiracist Teacher Leadership” and “Advancing Gender Equity in Computing.”
But the list also included other topics, such as the “Spread of Unsubstantiated Information” and “Addressing Vaccine Information Integrity.”
In a post about the canceled grants, the NSF said that the misinformation research funding was halted to comply with Trump’s January 20 executive order on “restoring freedom of speech.”
The agency said it does “not support research with the goal of combating ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation’ that could be used to infringe on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advances a preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate.”
The changes have prompted backlash from various research organizations and stakeholders.
In response to the executive orders and other internal changes at NSF, some of which have taken place since DOGE arrived in mid-April, researchers have been asked to ensure funding requests comply with shifting directives.
That guidance has put scientists in the “middle of a political tug-of-war, wasting valuable time and resources,” according to an April 24 statement from the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences.
“NSF has a tested process for evaluating the intellectual merit and the broader impact of proposed investigations and FABBS encourages NSF to honor it,” the federation’s statement reads.
The National Science Foundation may also face sweeping cuts to its roughly 1,500-person workforce, echoing how DOGE has demanded a reduction in force, or RIF, across numerous federal agencies.
The NSF was established in 1950 and is tasked with evaluating the scientific merit of grant requests and doling out dollars — mostly to universities and other research institutions — to advance scientists’ understanding of a wide range of topics, including artificial intelligence and the fundamental workings of the cosmos.
