Guest column: Why science funding matters to Indiana

Chicago Tribune

15-02-2025

Cuts to science funding threaten life expectancy, our economic and job growth, and our work opportunities. Last week the government cut 'indirect costs' to universities and medical centers, which cover shared resources like buildings, utility bills, computer networks, and support staff. Indiana will lose $69 million this year in critical research funding due to those cuts, devastating science infrastructure across the state. (These cuts are on top of and unrelated to cuts targeting diversity). With even deeper science cuts proposed, the future of science is at risk in Indiana, along with the jobs, medical advances, and economic growth it drives.
I am concerned about these losses in Indiana because my own journey to becoming a scientist started in Lake County, Indiana. I grew up in Schererville and graduated from Lake Central High School. Back then, I worked as a waitress at Bakers Square in Merrillville, on Route 30. When I wasn't working or at school, I was often at the Southlake Mall or reading at the Barnes & Noble. As a senior at Lake Central, my guidance counselor suggested I apply to Indiana University in Bloomington — it was the only college I applied to. I was accepted and became the first in my family to attend college, something that was only possible with federal aid for students (FAFSA). I studied genetics, neuroscience, child development, animal intelligence, and even met Jane Goodall when she visited the Anthropology Department. As a student learning how to do research, I wasn't just reading about science from the floor of a strip mall anymore — I was meeting the people doing the work. This showed me that scientific work had always been close to my home in Indiana.
Today, I am a scientist and professor of developmental neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University. My research focuses on how children's brains develop and how human intelligence first emerges. I was the first scientist to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify a part of the human brain critical for mathematical development in preschool children. I also showed how this brain region is genetic, shaped by evolution. This discovery helps doctors and scientists identify children at risk for learning disabilities, allowing for earlier interventions and better outcomes. I work alongside scientists developing more effective strategies for teaching children with disabilities. Our research is building a better understanding of how learning begins in the brain to prevent and treat disabilities.
None of this — from training, to research, to advances in our understanding of children's brain development — would have been possible without public institutions like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The MRI machines that allow us to see brain activity and the labs where we conduct neuroscience research are funded by those institutions, along with the salaries of the scientists who run studies and train young researchers to use MRI technology and data. My 'indirect costs' are the space, software, safety experts, and technical staff that support the MRI machines.
Research from these institutions provides immense public benefits. It improves both public health and our economy. In 1900, the average life expectancy in Indiana was just 47 years. Thanks to scientific innovation — like new medical treatments developed by federally funded researchers — by 2021, it had risen to 76 years.
Brain research has taught us how to remove brain tumors, stop strokes from spreading, and develop cures for childhood diseases like epilepsy. Thousands of researchers in my field dedicate their lives to understanding the brain, hoping to develop treatments for learning disabilities, cancer, Alzheimer's, and dementia. These treatments do not yet exist because brain science is complex and takes decades of work, only possible through continued federal funding.
Unlike research done in corporations, findings from NIH and NSF are shared publicly. Data sharing is a key requirement of federal grants, ensuring results benefit everyone, not just private companies. Public science is something that makes American science unique, and it allows scientists to work more collaboratively and quickly than in other countries. Moreover, research funding largely supports people, whose salaries are spent in the local economy. Statewide, NIH funding alone contributed over $1 billion to Indiana's economy and supported tens of thousands of jobs. Without steady funding for the NIH and NSF, this vital research — and the jobs, health improvements, and opportunities it creates — will disappear.
My hope is that science funding will be increased, not cut, so that other young people in Indiana have the same opportunities I had to work for the greater good, making discoveries that save and improve lives. Science makes lives better in Indiana, and people in Indiana deserve to benefit from the next generation of discovery.