Somewhere in this country, a talented future scientist is about to be overlooked, not for lack of ability, but because no one has decided they’re worth helping. That almost happened to me. It almost happened to my husband. And with the U.S. House of Representatives now pushing to cancel programs that broaden STEM participation, it could happen to thousands more.
I excelled in high school, and when a four-year school proved financially out of reach for my family, I started at a community college before transferring. A federally supported summer research program — an NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates at the University of Chicago, which places undergraduates in hands-on research alongside working scientists — gave me my first real shot. I went on to earn a Ph.D. in physics from William & Mary and to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford modeling breast cancer. Today, I’m a science educator and treasurer of STEM Paths Innovation Network, closing the STEM opportunity gap for girls and students of color in Washington.
My husband, a Latino first-generation college graduate, grew up in Las Cruces, N.M. He earned a physics degree from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in biophysics from Stanford and now manages a team at a Bothell biotech company. We met at the REU at the University of Chicago, both of us there because someone saw promise in us.
My husband was gifted from the start, but he was talked out of advanced coursework by the very teachers who should have pushed him toward it. His barrier was invisibility. Mine was gender. In a field still overwhelmingly male, ability alone wasn’t enough for me. My male colleagues were trusted from day one; I had to earn that same trust over and over. Different obstacles, same result: a system that too often only recognizes potential in people who already look the part. What changed our trajectories wasn’t luck; it was programs built to find talented people who fall through the cracks, exactly the kind of program now on the chopping block.
The House’s FY27 Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill includes two provisions, Sections 551 and 554, that would bar federal science agencies from funding the offices and grants that broaden participation in STEM — the same kind of programs that helped me and my husband power through endless obstacles to become scientists. This isn’t partisan: Last year the Senate included bipartisan report language recognizing that expanding STEM opportunities to underrepresented communities is essential to the nation’s workforce future. The House provisions would undo it.
Some argue federal agencies should simply fund the best science, and that programs like these distract from that mission. In fact, the opposite is true: These programs are how we find the best science in the first place. Washington faces a real STEM workforce shortage; the state has the second-highest concentration of STEM jobs in the nation, yet graduates only about half as many STEM bachelor’s degrees as it needs, leaving a projected shortfall of roughly 60,000 STEM workers. We cannot close that gap while continuing to overlook talent in entire communities. Women, for instance, still make up only about a quarter of the U.S. STEM workforce despite earning more than a third of STEM degrees. Finding overlooked talent isn’t a distraction from scientific excellence; it’s how we get more of it.
Congress writes the budget, and lawmakers are working on next year’s spending bills now. U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is well-positioned to insist that the House provisions are not included in the conferenced bill. Washington’s House delegation can push to strip Sections 551 and 554 before then. I’m asking them to do exactly that.
My and my husband’s stories aren’t unique. We represent thousands of scientists this country almost lost, whether the barrier was gender, background or geography. The only difference for us is that someone decided our potential was worth the investment. It’s why I do the work I do now with SPIN, investing in Washington’s overlooked kids before someone tells them not to bother. The question for Congress now is simple: Is the next woman, the next person this system wasn’t built to expect, worth it too?
