flâneur

I’m an award-winning mathematician. Trump just cut my funding.

newsletter.ofthebrave.org · 2,139 words · saved by 1 readers

In just six months, the United States has seen a wholesale assault on the scientific infrastructure that helped make it a world leader in innovation. Grants have been cancelled mid-project, fellowships for the next generation of researchers gutted, and federally funded institutes stripped of the resources they need to operate. These decisions are not the result of scientific review or Congressional debate, but of abrupt political directives that bypass long-standing norms, disrupt multi-year projects, and erode the independence of our research ecosystem. I speak to this not as a distant observer, but as someone whose entire professional life has been shaped by that ecosystem. I grew up in Australia, but was immersed in American science and culture from an early age. Sesame Street taught me to count; Carl Sagan's Cosmos inspired a fascination with the natural world; and books from the Mathematical Association of America deepened my love of mathematics. My path eventually led me from und

Photo: Courtesy of Author By Terence Tao In just six months, the United States has seen a wholesale assault on the scientific infrastructure that helped make it a world leader in innovation. Grants have been cancelled mid-project, fellowships for the next generation of researchers gutted, and federally funded institutes stripped of the resources they need to operate. These decisions are not the result of scientific review or Congressional debate, but of abrupt political directives that bypass long-standing norms, disrupt multi-year projects, and erode the independence of our research…

related reading