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Students, faculty mystified as NSF turns back applications for prestigious fellowship program
When Kulindu Vithanachchi’s phone lit up with an update from the National Science Foundation about his application for a high-profile early-career fellowship, he couldn’t wait to open the message, hopeful for big news. But not this news.
Vithanachchi, a University of Arizona undergraduate and budding microbiologist, was in the lab when he learned that his application for NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program had been “returned without review,” turned back before outside experts had a chance to judge the scientific merit of the proposal. The agency’s email said his submission included proposed research that made him ineligible for the program — and that the decision was final. The email did not specify further.
.............
When NSF announced a second batch of 500 GRFP recipients last year, none was in the life sciences, even though the field has historically been among the leaders in applicants and recipients. Students in computer science and physics, however, had better odds of success, and the Trump administration has made artificial intelligence and quantum information science key parts of its scientific agenda. The former program directors recently performed a statistical analysis suggesting that the 2025 award pattern was the result of selection bias.
A GRFP award isn’t a golden ticket, but it offers some security in academia, where funding can make or break careers. Corbin Schuster, a microbiologist at Oregon State University, had been hopeful a Ph.D. student in his lab would receive the award, as the fellowship combined with startup funds would have covered the student’s stipend for the length of her dissertation project. But Schuster, whose trainee had her application returned without review, says the student will probably need to do teaching assistantships to cover part of her pay, which will slow down the pace of her project.
Vithanachchi, a University of Arizona undergraduate and budding microbiologist, was in the lab when he learned that his application for NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program had been “returned without review,” turned back before outside experts had a chance to judge the scientific merit of the proposal. The agency’s email said his submission included proposed research that made him ineligible for the program — and that the decision was final. The email did not specify further.
.............
When NSF announced a second batch of 500 GRFP recipients last year, none was in the life sciences, even though the field has historically been among the leaders in applicants and recipients. Students in computer science and physics, however, had better odds of success, and the Trump administration has made artificial intelligence and quantum information science key parts of its scientific agenda. The former program directors recently performed a statistical analysis suggesting that the 2025 award pattern was the result of selection bias.
A GRFP award isn’t a golden ticket, but it offers some security in academia, where funding can make or break careers. Corbin Schuster, a microbiologist at Oregon State University, had been hopeful a Ph.D. student in his lab would receive the award, as the fellowship combined with startup funds would have covered the student’s stipend for the length of her dissertation project. But Schuster, whose trainee had her application returned without review, says the student will probably need to do teaching assistantships to cover part of her pay, which will slow down the pace of her project.
https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/11/nsf-grfp-life-science-rejections-spike/
The only thing this administration does well is destroy things, and he is leading the charge to destroy scientific innovation and medical breakthroughs in the country.
The saving grace is that it will be the rest of the world who will take the lead, and we will be left in the dust as long as anti-science dogma jackasses have the majority in our government.
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