Trump fires Oak Ridge scientist from board

Mariah Franklin

Knoxville News Sentinel USA TODAY NETWORK – TENNESSEE

Ex-UT researcher also cut from science body

An Oak Ridge National Lab scientist and a former research lead for the University of Tennessee at Knoxville were among those federal officials say President Donald Trump fired from an independent board that promotes science.

Information on the website of Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the most senior Democrat on the House Committee on Science, Space & Technology, said committee staff learned the president had gutted the National Science Board, which is the governing board for the federal National Science Foundation.

Merlin Theodore, a materials scientist who leads the Advanced Fibers Manufacturing Group at Oak Ridge National Lab, served on the board with Victor McCrary, a chemist who had been UT’s vice chancellor for research for several months in 2018.

The National Science Foundation was established in 1950 and aims to advance American scientific efforts while keeping the U.S. at the bleeding

edge of innovation. One way it does that is through grantmaking, awarding billions of dollars in funding every year.

What is the National Science Board cut by Trump?

National Science Board members act as the governing board for the National Science Foundation.

The board is made up of 25 members who serve staggered six-year terms to work on the organization’s budgets and long-term priorities. They’re tasked with fostering U.S. scientific efforts and guiding science funding, and they’re advisors to the president and Congress.

Theordore’s term on the board was set for 2022-2028, according to information on the foundation’s website. McCrary sat on the board starting in 2016, he said in an academic resume published online by the U.S. House of Representatives, and his term also was set to expire in 2028.

“We look forward to working with the Hill to update the statute and ensure the NSB can perform its duties as Congress intended,” a staffer for the White House press office said in an unsigned email to Knox News.

Theodore referred questions about the board to McCrary, who chaired the science board and is the vice-provost at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

McCrary did not respond to a voicemail in time for publication.

TN professor worries about oversight following Trump firings

While a White House staffer told Knox News the foundation’s work “continues uninterrupted,” a Tennessee scientist cut from the board April 24 said this is not likely.

Keivan Stassun received an email from a White House Personnel Office staffer informing him of his termination that afternoon.

“On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as a member of the National Science Board is terminated, effective immediately,” the email said. “Thank you for your service.”

Stassun, the director of Vanderbilt’s Frist Center for Autism and Innovation, is also a professor of physics, management and computer science at the private Nashville university. He said he’d spoken personally to about a third of the board members − including McCrary − all of whom told him they’d also been cut.

“I haven’t heard from anyone who hasn’t been terminated,” he said.

The terminations came with no warning, Stassun said, but not as a major surprise. The president’s budget request for the last year, he said, would have cut the foundation’s budget by more than half.

Looking at the firings of other federal science advisory board members gave him an idea of what to expect after his own research group portfolio was slashed by federal cuts in early 2025.

Before April 24, Stassun told Knox News, the board was preparing to issue a report warning the U.S. was ceding ground to China in scientific investment.

“What this represents,” he said about the terminations, “is the culmination of a strategy by the administration to remove any additional layers required to enable it to run the agency without oversight.”

Mariah Franklin reports on technology and energy for Knox News. Email: mariah.franklin@knoxnews.com. Signal: mariahfranklin.01