Gabriel Filippelli got the form letter from the U.S. State Department on a Monday morning two and a half weeks ago. Since October, Filippelli has been teaching students and faculty in Pakistan how to use air quality devices to monitor air pollution exacerbated by rising temperatures — a consequence of climate change. The letter from the State Department, which had awarded the $300,000 underpinning the collaboration, said the funding was suspended, effective immediately. The project, it said, “no longer effectuates the priorities of the agency.” 

Since President Donald Trump took office on January 20, his administration has sought to pause, eliminate, and claw back federal funding for research across the federal government.

Filippelli, the executive director of the Environmental Resilience Institute at Indiana University, is a poster boy for the on-the-ground effects of these new policies. The review of one of his research proposals at the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, the federal agency that funds and executes medical research, is delayed. Another proposal and four […]