Kelly Brunt was not the only federal employee be licensed this month while traveling for work. But she was almost certainly the only one whose work trip was in Antarctica.
Dr. Brunt was program director at the National Science Foundation, the agency of $ 9 billion which supports scientific advancement in almost all areas of medicine. As part of the Trump administration campaign to reduce the federal government, around 10% of 1,450 Foundation career employees lost their jobs last week. Officials told staff that dismissals were just beginning.
However, the office where Dr. Brunt worked has an importance that goes beyond science.
The polar programs office coordinates research in the Arctic and Antarctica, where fragile and rapidly evolving environments are of increasing strategic interest in superpowers in the world.
By treaty, Antarctica is a scientific reserve. And for decades, American research – plus the three annual stations, the planes and ships that support it – were the basis of the presence of the country there.
In recent times, “countries like Korea and China have quickly expanded its presence, while the United States has somehow maintained the status quo,” said Julia Wellner, marine scientist at the University of Houston who is studying Antarctic glaciers.
The polar programs office has long been in sub-effective, said Michael Jackson, who worked as an Antarctic program director for the agency until his retirement at the end of last year. Air planes and installations, as well as flat budgets for science, have hindered the pace of research. “Right now, we are able to do 60% of the science that we were able to do,” 15 years ago, said Dr. Jackson.
If the Trump administration reduces science financing, American researchers could collaborate more with the polar institutes of other nations, as many already do, said Dr. Wellner. “But these other countries have their own scientists,” she said. “I don’t think South Korea or the United Kingdom will just make room for all of us.”
When asked how the dismissals of polar scientists would affect the work of the National Science Foundation, a representative of the agency refused to comment.
When the agency dismissed Dr. Brunt and other employees last week, she returned home after spending more than a month at McMurdo station in Antarctica. Another program director who was dismissed, David Porter, supported scientists who launched New Zealand for a 10-week expedition to the Southern Ocean. Other teams were preparing to drill ice nuclei, take seismic measures, measure ultraviolet radiation and more.
The agents of the Foundation program help to decide which projects like these are most worthy of federal financing. Often, they are themselves experienced scientists: Dr. Porter is an expert in atmospheric and oceanic science who worked at Columbia University.
The use of Dr. Brunt NSF was probative because she became permanent worker only six months ago, she said. Before that, she spent three years at the agency in temporary assignment of NASA and the University of Maryland. In total, she has 25 years of experience as a glaciologist and 15 seasons of Antarctic land to her credit.
“I want to dispel this rumor that it is a group of people who are sitting aspiring the bottle of government milk,” said Dr. Jackson. “These are people who have had well -established careers in the academic world, and they decided that they wanted to come to the NSF and restore something to American taxpayers.”
Dr. Jackson also does not buy the idea that the elimination of federal workers will eliminate fraud and abuse. “By deleting the program officers on the front line, you actually delete the very thing you want to have there to make sure that no fraud and abuse occurs,” he said.
For scientists in the field, their program agent could also be their first point of contact when problems arise, said Twila Moon, the deputy principal scientist of the National Snow and Ice Data Center by Boulder, Colo.
“Maybe you have problems with part of the logistics,” said Dr. Moon. “Maybe your instruments do not arrive on time, or there have been changes in the field flights to which you should think.” Fewer officers mean more scientists at risk of snags or challenges, she said.
The geopolitical importance of Antarctica could help protect it from the most serious cost reduction in the administration, said Dawn Sumner, planetary scientist of the University of California in Davis, who studies microbes in Antarctic lakes . “The only way you can have a presence in Antarctica is by science,” said Dr. Sumner.
Despite this, a large part of this science is motivated by the need to tackle global warming, a subject that President Trump and his allies have long disrected as a non-problem.
Dr. Wellner of the University of Houston judges “appalling” that Antarctic scientists may one day have to avoid mentioning climate change to receive federal funding. However, she said, researchers from Texas, Florida and other states have long understood how to get around the official taboos around the climate.
“We are talking about the rise of sea level in Texas all the time,” said Dr. Wellner. “You don’t have to talk about” climate “. It’s just a “sea climb”. »»