iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

I’m honored to have written a piece on NIH to complement the resignation letters from former NIH personnel in this volume. “Count Me Out” is a unique and timely project to bring these artifacts from all over the federal civil service to the public. Thank you to everyone who contributed!

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 05/09/2026

Ok here we go: It DOES look like a major purpose of this NIH funding transfer to NIH is to circumvent NIH’s peer review processes so political appointees can have control. Check out the redacted agreement @maxkozlov.bsky.social released: 1/

AGENCY-AGREEMENT-NIH-AND-DOW-REDACTED v
Q
Federal departments, agencies, and offices with respect to the identification of additional priority virus families and other viral pathogens with a significant potential to cause a pandemic" (42
U.S.C. § 285f-5(e)(1)).
Through this agreement, NIH will leverage OASW ND-CBD's procurement, grants, and funding network to allow for critical basic science
I, related research pathways, and basic research to
support the translation and advanced development of medical countermeasures.

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Check out my new piece in the Boston Review, where I discuss the importance of understanding pluralist democratic institutions to science policy. It’s an honor to contribute to such an important conversation alongside these illustrious thinkers!

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Janet Vertesi @cyberlyra.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Hey #sociologists and #sts scholars! We've been teaching Merton's norms of science wrong for decades!! They're not lofty misstaken descriptions, but a prescription for state funded science to avoid Nazism! More relevant than ever today. My latest with @nataliebaviles.bsky.social #academicsky

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

So pleased to hear that After Positivism, edited by @mayrl.bsky.social and @nickhwilson.bsky.social, received the Barrington Moore book award! It was such an honor to be part of this incredible collective effort

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 13/07/2026

My comment with @nataliebaviles.bsky.social on the proposed OMB rule. Covers the shift to presidential control over funding decisions, and how this draws from the logic of unitary executive theory—which is flawed historically, Constitutionally, and in its assertion of democratic accountability. 1/

scienceandfreedomalliance.substack.com

Presidential control of funding is less, not more, accountable to the public

A comment on the OMB funding proposed rule from Mark Histed and Natalie Aviles

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Angry Staff Officer @pptsapper.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Happy “liberal arts professor helps save the Union” day to all who celebrate

Charge of the 20th Maine at Little Round Top

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Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Political scientist here: this is not funny, democracies only do this when they're in extreme distress

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Literally wrote an entire budget justification like this last night in my hotel room, ankles crisscrossing and everything

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 29/06/2026

Sotomayor’s dissent is an obituary for science, NIH, and NSF. “Seldom, if ever, has this Court worked such a profound bait and switch on a coequal branch: For more than 90 years, Congress believed, with this Court’s express approval, that it was allowed to create a workable Govern- ment…”

Today's decision profoundly undermines this reliance and, as a result, undercuts one side of the balance that the political branches struck. Put simply, today the majority reshapes our Government. Dozens of independent commissions are now likely to become purely executive agencies, shifting tremendous power over broad swaths of American life into the President's hands: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, with responsibility for managing the Nation's energy supply, see 42 U.S. C. §7171(b)(1); the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which protects Americans against harms caused by dangerous goods, see
15 U.S. C. §2053(a); the Chemical Safety Board, tasked with investigating chemical disasters, see 42 U.S. C.
§7412(r)(6)(B); the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, responsible for the regulation of nuclear power, see 42 U.S. C. 885841(a), (c), (e); and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), charged with ensuring the integrity of the civil service, see 5 U. S. C. §1202. The list of agencies
entially modified by today's decision goes on.
Seldom, if ever, has this Court worked such a profound bait and switch on a coequal branch: For more than 90 years, Congress believed, with this Court's express ap-proval, that it was allowed to create a workable Govern-ment, including by granting certain agencies tasked with certain responsibilities some independence from Presidential control.
In rejecting that project, after decades of prom-
ising the po
ical branches that structures like the FTC's
were permissible, the Court creates an Executive Branch that Congress never dreamed of establishing and that it now has little hope of ever reining in. Cf. Learning Re-sources, Inc. v. Trump, 607 U. S. 229, 244-245 (2026) (opin-

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Imagine somebody playing in your face like this on the WORLD STAGE.

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

The HPV vaccine is one of the most incredible public health innovations of the past century, and it wouldn’t have been possible without work done at the US National Institutes of Health. Yet another reason why NIH—often called the “crown jewel” of the US federal government—is worth protecting.

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 18/06/2026

“the view that grantmaking should serve to advance the President’s political and policy preferences whether or not those align with congressional intent, the public good, or merit, wholly subject to the unreviewable and unaccountable whims of political actors in the executive branch.” Great piece 🧪

cbpp.org

The Trump Administration Seeks to End Nonpartisan Grantmaking

A proposed rule would radically transform how grant award decisions are made, allowing them to be based on purely political calculations — including who receives funds, what is required of grantees, a...

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

My daughter completely acing the Civil War/Reconstruction portion of the Virginia Studies SOL feels a bit like the passing of the torch on my very niche autistic special interest

static.klipy.com

Emotional Man Crying Proudly

ALT: Emotional Man Crying Proudly

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

I got the best birthday present this year: my official tenure letter!

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

I went to the zoo and everybody there knew me

An exhibit placard that reads “screaming hairy armadillo”

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anil oza @aniloza.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

As someone that has invoked Vannevar Bush more than my colleagues would like .... I appreciated this piece making the case that there are other figures we could reach for as touchstones amid all of the upheaval

screenshot of essay reading "In this chaotic time, Vannevar Bush’s Science, the Endless Frontier has emerged as a symbolically meaningful text among scientists, who frequently point to it as the basis for the government’s long-running support of university research. Certainly, Bush marked a call for a new industrial policy in the United States that would make the nation a global leader in the new world order. He would later be credited as the architect of the so-called social contract of science, whereby federal funding is allocated primarily to university researchers in pursuit of free inquiry that might later yield some economic or social benefit. But this mythologized rendering of the innovation system overlooks other key ideas, like those expressed by sociologist Robert K. Merton, that described how the United States should govern science democratically based on lessons learned from the Second World War. Rereading Merton now, even more than revisiting Bush, better exposes the vulnerabilities driving us, as social scientists, to defend a vision of science as—and for—democracy in our own era."

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JAMA @jama.com · 08/06/2026

In 2025, the number of #NIH-funded investigators declined for the first time in a decade, with the steepest reductions among Black and Hispanic researchers and fellows. ja.ma/4ujDlzG

JAMA Research Letter: "Trends in National Institutes of Health Investigators by Sex, Race, Ethnicity, and Disability Status." Two line graphs show A) research project grant investigators (rising from ~40k to ~50k) and B) fellowships (fluctuating, peaking ~4.5k) from 2016-2025.

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I-270, Exit 1 @i270exit1.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

If you have applied or plan to apply for an NIH grant, if you have reviewed or want to review for an NIH panel, you must read this piece from @27unihted.bsky.social about the detrimental changes to NIH peer review. @jeremymberg.bsky.social @drugmonkey.bsky.social substack.com/inbox/post/2...

substack.com

The Quiet Attack On Science: Subverting NIH Peer Review

Authored by anonymous current and former NIH workers with experience in peer review, this is an overview of all the changes to NIH's peer review over the last 18 months.

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

My new piece in @issuesinst.bsky.social with @cyberlyra.bsky.social comes at an urgent moment in science policy. New OMB rules and EOs threaten to politicize science and strip it of the democratic norms, autonomy, and pluralism meant to protect science as and for democracy issues.org/merton-redux...

issues.org

Merton Redux: Re-Confronting the Norms of Science in Democracy

The decimation of democratic processes that undergird state-sponsored research may be ultimately more consequential than funding cuts.

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 06/06/2026

And anyone who is interested in these issues should read @nataliebaviles.bsky.social EXCELLENT book about how NIH has been run through its history, “An Ungovernable Foe.” cup.columbia.edu/book/an-ungo...

cup.columbia.edu

An Ungovernable Foe | Columbia University Press

Winner, 2024 Choice Outstanding Academic TitleIn American politics, medical innovation is often considered the domain of the private sector. Yet some of the ... | CUP

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 06/06/2026

Yesterday I spoke to @aniloza.bsky.social about the paper @nataliebaviles.bsky.social and I wrote on NIH governance history — and what kind of governance works for science (presidential control does not work!)

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 06/06/2026

Remember the current NIH director going on about protecting researchers from government censorship? Today his people called the police in to forcibly remove my colleagues from their own society meeting for sharing an editorial published in their flagship journal that was critical of him. Gift link

nytimes.com

Police Remove Diabetes Experts From Conference for Distributing Critique of Trump Administration

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

I spoke to @aniloza.bsky.social at STAT about how the latest executive order further presidentializes NIH. Schedule P/C undermines the fundamental philosophy of expert-led civil servant judgment that has made US science the envy of the world for 80+ years. www.statnews.com/2026/06/05/s...

statnews.com

What stripping civil service protections for thousands of federal workers will mean for HHS

Thousands of HHS staff who shape policy have had their employment status changed to a designation that makes it easier for them to be fired.

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Noah Rosenblum @narosenblum.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

When admin scholars talk about the Court’s attack on functional government, we have in mind not just high profile cases like Cook and Slaughter, but rulings like today’s decision in FCC v ATT. Decisions like this and — what they reveal — are death by 1000 cuts. 1/8

supremecourt.gov

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Among those positions that will be converted to presidential appointees are the leaders of NIH’s extramural grants, intramural program, and policy. This in essence politicizes everything the agency’s mission touches.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 02/06/2026

the supposedly "originalist" unitary executive theory has led us to a point where the president is claiming the sovereign authority to force all institutions, public or private, to bend to his will or suffer the consequences www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/u...

nytimes.com

White House Seeks to Impose Political Test on Billions in Federal Grants

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Josh Chafetz @joshchafetz.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

3/ The Vought White House, which has adopted UET on steroids, is extending this to the proposition that only the president can identify national priorities, even in the teeth of countervailing statutory language. That is personalist rule; it has nothing to do with rule by law.

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

The OMB’s proposed rule changes make concrete what @markhisted.org and I have called a model of “presidentialist governance” at Trump’s NIH. It replaces the previous approach that foregrounded pluralistic democratic deliberation among Congress and scientific advisors. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.com

How Congress can restore the independence of US science

Members must go beyond reinstating US government research spending and re-establish decentralized governance at the National Institutes of Health and other agencies.

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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

"The document itself is an odd grab-bag of micromanaging grant processes, assertion of presidential power, and airing of cultural grievances... Its lack of coherence, however, will not prevent it from causing staggering damage to the US scientific system." 👇 arstechnica.com/science/2026...

arstechnica.com

Proposed new US funding rules: We can cancel any grant at any time

Peer review now optional, political staff would screen grants for forbidden topics.

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 30/05/2026

Yes. For science @nataliebaviles.bsky.social and I have a paper on this. Without a “fourth branch” US science is dead. We just cannot operate without independence from the White House: expertise is needed, timelines are long and span administrations. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

papers.ssrn.com

Presidentialist Governance is Incompatible with the American Science Superpower

Basic science is a public good which cannot thrive without government investment. America’s present status as a scientific superpower is built on a foundat

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

@aniloza.bsky.social continues his exceptional reporting on NIH at STAT. In this piece, he cites experts like Elizabeth Ginexi and my work with @markhisted.org to show why the proposed OMB changes are catastrophic for democratic science governance. www.statnews.com/2026/05/29/n...

statnews.com

Trump administration seeks to overhaul federal grantmaking process, alarming researchers

The Trump administration has released a sweeping proposal to overhaul the bedrock regulation for all federal grants.

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Josh Chafetz @joshchafetz.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

1/ This is awful for so, so many reasons. Just to pick one: even if you thought it was lawful and appropriate to vet funded research for consistency with the government's priorities, *the president is not the government*.

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

I’m proud to have my work on governance at NIH with @markhisted.org so ably referenced here by Lowe to make the undeniable case that Trump’s policies are destroying US science.

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 29/05/2026

"The plan is to kill off publicly funded academic science in this country." Correct. And that means killing off the whole US science and innovation industry. Because it's all built on a foundation of basic research—which. can. only. be. funded. by. public. dollars.

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

I spent 2+ years as part of a coalition that tried to stop Charlottesville City Schools from putting police back into our schools after they were removed in 2020. The board refused to read the literature showing their harms. This NYT story shows their human cost. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/28/b...

nytimes.com

A Violent Education

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Not only is I Love Boosters a phenomenal exhibition of Boots Riley’s chaotic Black Marxist surrealist imagination, but I just found out about the LA promo and it was so completely on the nose

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 28/05/2026

This could be very VERY BAD. It looks like a way to remove transparency of peer review, which would enable political apparatchiks to have much more power over decisions on where grant money goes.

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

We are running out of fire alarms to pull here, folks.

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Back in 2013, Bruno Latour said Boomers’ questioning of institutions was well-meaning, but since they never replaced the institutions they subverted with new habits of democracy, the new generation can only fall back into fundamentalism in their search for truth. I think about that a lot these days.

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Federal employees, speaking in their personal capacity on matters of public concern, have been a bulwark of transparency in this lawless administration. OPM’s proposed NDAs impose secrecy and the threat of retaliation to silence civil servants and further obscure agency actions from public scrutiny.

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

I find myself constantly mourning what we have lost to AI. It’s been a year since an undergraduate called a scholarly manuscript a “novel” in one of their essays 🥺

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Prof. Aviles @nataliebaviles.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Geloë’s resting expression is permanently fixed in “I accidentally turned on my phone when the camera was flipped” mode

A closeup of a remarkably spherical French bulldog

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 22/05/2026

I talked to some people today about the Trump admin firing the Nat'l Science Board, and citing a recent Roberts Court decision as justification. Made me think of this essay from 2024. One title we tossed around was "This Supreme Court's Approach to Government Threatens US Science." ayup. 👍😬😡

infotimes.us

How a Second Trump Administration Might Attack US Science [April 2024]

This is an essay from spring 2024 about how US science could be threatened by a potential second Trump administration, written by Noah Rosenblum and myself. We ultimately never published it, in part b...

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 19/05/2026

This is a great thread. “A distributed system of deciding where research support goes is demonstrably best.” Yes. In a recent working paper @nataliebaviles.bsky.social and I profiled the US and EU BRAIN projects as an example of this, but the principle is what made NIH strong before 2025. 1/4

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