AAAS Calls for Confirmation Hearing for NSF Director

The head of one of the world’s largest science societies urged leaders of a Senate committee Thursday to hold an open confirmation hearing on whether to confirm President Trump’s proposed National Science Foundation director, Jim O’Neill. The agency has been without a director since last April.

“It has been two years since China surpassed the United States in total dollars spent on research and development, and it has been one year since we have had any clarity on America’s vision by a Senate-confirmed Director of NSF,” Sudip S. Parikh, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and executive publisher of the Science journals, wrote in a letter to leaders of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “There is no time left to waste.”

The Trump administration said back in February that O’Neill would be its nominee, but the position requires Senate confirmation.

“In this time of massive disruption in the sciences from artificial intelligence, global competition, and the Trump administration, it is essential to have a visionary and articulate leader at the helm of a strong, well-funded, and productive agency investing in basic research and the next generation of American discovery,” Parikh wrote. “It is critical for the Committee to determine whether Mr. O’Neill is that leader.”

Science has reported that O’Neill “lacks an advanced science degree and any experience managing a large basic research enterprise.”

“An open forum is crucial to learn more about Mr. O’Neill’s vision for American science and NSF, and how he plans to tackle a wide array of issues he would face if confirmed,” Parikh wrote, adding that “While an unconventional background is not necessarily disqualifying, it does require greater scrutiny of the nomination by Congress.”

In an email to Inside Higher Ed, a White House spokesperson called criticisms about O’Neill’s lack of experience “idiotic criticisms.” “Jim was a venture capitalist whose job was to identify and finance promising technologies—i.e. what the NSF helps do on behalf of the federal government,” they said.

O’Neill helped identify and finance “cutting-edge technologies of the future” in his work in the private sector, the spokesperson said. They asserted that while at the Health and Human Services Department he “slashed fraud” and restored “the Gold Standard of Science over ideology as the driving factor behind agency decision-making.”

Parikh’s letter comes just days after the chair of the Senate HELP committee, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, lost the May 16 Republican primary in his re-election bid to a Trump-backed opponent.

Sethuraman Panchanathan, whom Trump appointed as NSF director in his first term, resigned in April 2025 amid layoffs at the agency and grant terminations. Last month, the White House ousted the entire National Science Board, which oversees the NSF, leaving the agency with no board members or director.