Nearly 2,000 top scientists, engineers and medical researchers, including 10 from Penn State, signed a letter saying the Trump administration is decimating the nation’s scientific enterprise and warning the public about what they say will be long-term damage.
The letter says the Trump administration is waging a “wholesale assault” on science in the United States, including slashing funding for research, engaging in censorship and blocking funding for projects it doesn’t like.
Susan Brantley, Evan Pugh University Professor and Atherton Professor Emerita of Geosciences at Penn State, is one of those who signed the letter.
“Just think of all the things that science does for humanity,” Brantley said.
She pointed to work at Penn State including mapping the Marcellus Shale region and monitoring it for water quality and seismic activity.
“There are so many things that science does that improve our lives, and it’s really a crisis — what’s happening with these kinds of cutbacks,” she said.
Brantley said she sees science as an investment and she’s worried not only about the impact of the Trump administration’s actions now, but what they’ll mean in years to come.
“Scientists are kind of the producers of ideas and producers of change and producers of new technology,” she said. “And I don’t think that our country will do well into the future if we’re not growing the great scientists that we can grow.”
The people who signed the letter are elected members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. They include Lee Kump, dean of Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, and Michael Mann, a former faculty member at Penn State who’s now Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
