To make my parents as proud as humanly possible, I followed the Jewish parents’ dream roadmap for their kids: After 12 years at Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy/Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School, I joined the Search and Rescue combat unit in the Israel Defense Forces, completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago in 2023 with degrees in biology and environmental science, and am in my second year of a Ph.D. program at Cornell University studying plant pathology.
Like many parents, mine encouraged a love of science. In countless Jewish households, STEM fields—particularly medicine, psychology, engineering—are seen as dependable routes to stability, achievement, and pride. But in today’s tense social climate, we must confront a hard truth: It’s becoming harder to justify encouraging our children to pursue science if we let the infrastructure that supports research erode.
When most people in our community think of science, they think of where they’ll be sending their children for medical school. They might vaguely recognize names like the National Science Foundation (NSF) or the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—institutions that pumped more than $546 million into New Jersey’s economy just last year. That’s not just money—it’s jobs, labs, innovation and opportunity that extend far beyond medicine, and much of it is quietly being gutted.
My own research at Cornell University focuses on using nature to solve one of agriculture’s most persistent problems: pest control. Instead of harmful chemicals that damage ecosystems and threaten human health, I study fungi that naturally infect and kill crop-destroying insects. Some of these fungi, from the group Entomophthorales (en-toe-mof-tho-RAY-lees), are in development to target pests that may have evolved resistance to chemical pesticides or are hidden from modern sprayers in flowers or fruits. These “insect-destroying” fungi can eliminate threats without harming the crops—or the humans who consume them. It’s an environmentally safe, cost-effective approach that already prevents over $100 million in crop losses each year and reduces pest damage by nearly 90%—and it’s not even fully developed yet.
Until recently, this work was conducted at a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) facility on Cornell’s campus, under the leadership of Dr. Brian Lovett. But earlier this year, Lovett became one of over 200,000 federal employees and researchers dismissed in a wave of cuts rooted in policy decisions from the current federal administration. Our lab, like hundreds of others, has since shut down.
This is what happens when we cut federal science: People lose jobs, progress stalls, and promising research vanishes. This is the reality of disinvestment in science: not just the loss of data, careers and discoveries—but the quiet erasure of the future we tell our kids to chase.
We now face a choice. We can stop encouraging our kids to be scientists—or we can stand up and fight for the institutions that allow scientific research to thrive.
These days, college campuses are often viewed within the Jewish community as hostile or unsafe. I understand that fear. I’ve lived it. But I also recognize that the research done on these campuses—much of it funded by the federal government—represents the brightest possible future for this country. Defunding science is not a response to antisemitism; it is a threat to progress.
I am the product of my parents’ hopes, my community’s support, and this country’s investment in education. I’ve received scholarships, fellowships and government funding. I see my research not just as a profession, but as a way to give back for all that I have received.
As members of a community that has long valued education, innovation and service, we must ask ourselves: How much of our daily lives—from the food we eat to the medicine we rely on—depends on federal science? And what will we lose if we allow that science to be quietly dismantled?
Because we’re already finding out.
Please consider signing the Citizen Science Pledge at tiny.cc/sciencepledge, speak to your representatives, and Stand Up for Science.
