May 5, 2025
Sunghee Lee & Brady West speak about what it’s like to have research funding cut by the Trump administration
The Conversation Weekly podcast spoke with
Sunghee Lee &
Brady West about having their funding by the Trump administration, calling it confusing and opaque.
Lee’s study examined risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease across all U.S. racial & ethnic groups: “ Our study looks at everybody. So if looking at everybody is a DEI study, just about any data collection in this country should be classified as DEI studies and terminated.”
West’s access to a federal data center was withdrawn. His study, which measured health disparities between people of different sexual identities, was winding down.
He says research projects are reviewed by a panel of experts who judge whether the proposal is novel and important. “A big misconception is that an administration chooses to fund these grants based on what they believe are important topics to research. That’s not the case.”