I am a research scientist at the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis. Before that, I was a student in Pittsburg Community Schools: I started kindergarten at Lakeside and graduated from Pittsburg High School in 2005. While growing up, I was fortunate to have teachers, mentors, and a community that fostered my curiosity across art, music, science, and literature. I learned about computer programming and math in after-school clubs at Lakeside. I explored mechanics and physics on the Science Olympiad team at PCMS. At PHS, I debated, performed in theater, played in the marching and jazz bands, and represented PHS in both academic and athletic competitions. I remain a proud Jayhawk, where I learned about psychology and neuroscience and discovered my desire to become a scientist.
Now, I investigate how children’s early environments shape their brain development and learning. I love my job. The research I do, alongside my colleagues, helps inform policies that support children and families and provides educators with evidence-based tools to help students thrive in the classroom. Researchers like me also train the next generation of scientists, ensuring that America remains the world’s leader in scientific innovation.
Research in the United States is largely supported by two remarkable federal agencies: the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). These agencies fund research at universities, hospitals, and research centers across the country. My PhD training was supported by an NSF fellowship. My current research is funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), one of the institutes within the NIH. In Kansas alone, the NIH provides $141 million in research funding every year, supporting more than 1,700 jobs and generating $385 million in economic activity. It’s one of the best investments taxpayers make, fueling scientific breakthroughs, medical advances, and economic growth.
NIH funding is especially important because it supports research that benefits everyone, not just private and for-profit companies. Discoveries funded by the NICHD have led to life-changing advancements: the Hib vaccine, which protects young children from bacterial infections that can cause brain damage and death; newborn screenings that detect genetic disorders like phenylketonuria (PKU) early enough to prevent lifelong disability; and policies that support early childhood education to foster healthy cognitive and emotional development before children even start school. These discoveries—like all NIH-funded research—are publicly accessible, ensuring that breakthroughs spread quickly across the scientific and medical communities. These benefits are now at risk.
On February 7, President Trump issued an Executive Order calling for drastic, across-the-board cuts to NIH and NSF funding. Since then, more than a thousand NIH employees have lost their jobs. Funding for clinical trials that could lead to new medical treatments has been frozen. Committees that award grants for innovative and lifesaving research have been canceled or indefinitely postponed. These cuts were justified with false claims that NIH and NSF funds are wasted on administrative slush funds or fraud. This is simply not true. In reality, these funds provide the backbone of research: they are used to keep labs running, to maintain critical research equipment and facilities, and to pay essential staff who manage projects and ensure that research operations run safely and smoothly.
For now, a federal court has temporarily paused these cuts. However, if these cuts go through, research across America will come to an abrupt halt as institutions struggle to deal with massive, unanticipated financial shortfalls. Promising medical and scientific breakthroughs could be delayed or lost entirely. Research scientists and staff will lose their jobs. Young scientists like me will be forced out of the field. Every state has at least one major university or medical center that depends on NIH and NSF support.
Research funded by the NIH and NSF doesn’t only benefit scientists and the research centers that employ them. These agencies have had a tremendous impact on communities like Pittsburg. If you were at high risk from Covid-19, you benefited from mRNA vaccines, which are estimated to have saved more than a million American lives. That technology was made possible by NIH-funded research. If your family has enrolled in one of the many early childhood education programs in SEK, the research justifying their state and federal support was funded by the NICHD. Maybe you’ve taken Ozempic or Wegovy, the drugs revolutionizing diabetes and weight loss treatment. These drugs were built upon NIH-funded research on a curious molecule found in the venom of the Gila monster, a lizard native to Arizona and New Mexico. If you have a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease, like me, the cuts have already had a worrying impact. As of March 3, 14 of the 35 Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers are shut down, and clinical trials testing promising new treatments for this devastating disease have been halted. We will all feel the impact if NIH and NSF support dramatically diminishes or disappears.
The United States is the global leader in scientific discovery, medical innovation, and research excellence. If these cuts stand, we will surrender that leadership. Talk to your family and friends and to your government representatives. Let them know that slashing NIH and NSF funding imperils our health, our economy, and our country’s future.
Jesse Niebaum was a Purple Dragon, class of ‘05, and Jayhawk, class of ‘09. He is now an NIH-funded project scientist at the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis. He completed a PhD in Developmental Psychology in 2021.
