What the scientific ecosystem makes possible
How an Emergent Ventures meeting in the Danish capital produced optimism about our future I was in Copenhagen this past weekend for a meeting of Emergent Ventures grant winners, most of whom were under thirty. I was the oldster among the group. The whole thing was actually one intense conversation after another, ranging from projecting Continue reading The Copenhagen Interpretation
How I was able to retain a superstar under less-than-ideal circumstances Some details here — names and offering institutions — have been changed. The dilemma is real; the disguises are mine. She had two NIH RO1 grants and a written job offer from an extremely prestigious Bay Area academic medical center. And she was in Continue reading But Wait, There’s More…
The 100 + page document is here. I m still reading the report and will eventually react to it here on the blog (and not on my Substack). There are plenty of quick takes (no doubt aided by AI) out there. July 23, 2026 After 24 hours to digest . Every science policy document since 1945 has Continue reading Michael Kratsio s Frontier Vision
My dinner with Ronald Reagan yielded an unexpected lesson The future POTUS refused the interview request. I was phoning up to his room from the dated lobby of the Lord Jeffrey Inn, a place named after an alleged British war criminal, now renamed the Inn on Boltwood. It was my chance for a huge scoop Continue reading The Napkin
I had a plan for neuroscience funding. It meant redirecting money Congress had already promised to someone else. My deputy had a plan too. I did have a plan for neuroscience funding. It was a piggy bank which had $150M in it dedicated to studying the molecular biology of plants. I coveted a big chunk Continue reading The Piggy Bank
Dan s spot on, as always, here. I remember one time, the bunch of us had fun making ChatGPT (early version) write NSF non-technical summaries as Sonnets and Haiku. Those were the days. Now, it s eating the agency budget with its buddy Quantum.
Three weeks into a new job, I got blamed for a sustainability plan I didn t write. It turned out the Board was right to be angry I’d been in this room quite a few times. It was on the 12th floor of the old Arlington NSF headquarters and housed a 15-meter-long conference table and chairs for Continue reading Offensive: What a Bad Sustainability Plan Looks Like from the Other Side of the Table
The Vietnam era sent some of America s best young scientists to Canada. It s happening again. Kyoto, Japan, 2016. There was a break between sessions, and I was out on the patio of the conference center venue talking with the President of York University in Ontario. We were both at the STS forum, one of the Continue reading THE SECOND EXODUS
How a global roadshow built the political cover for America s brain initiative It had been a long haul from Newark — eighteen hours plus, but something is clarifying about the final approach into Changi. The city materializes out of the South China Sea, improbably ordered, all reclaimed land and green corridors, a small nation that Continue reading THE ROAD TO WASHINGTON RUNS THROUGH SINGAPORE
They are buying the label on the bottle “This is not my wine,” announced the billionaire as he sipped from the elongated crystal goblet that our university president had just poured. It was his wine. I had pressed my local distributor, a 30-something Virginian with a name straight out of Gone With The Wind, hard Continue reading Fundraising for Science