David Miller has been an incredible resource for me in the past few months. I appreciate his work and advocacy for STEM.

Below is a post of his asking to share stories and experiences with NSF and, in particular, what it would mean for me to be #WithoutNSF.

YAAASSSS Want to channel your anger about the demolition happening right now at NSF toward productive action? Check out the three pithy posts below and share your #WithoutNSF stories widely, both here and beyond. #StandUpForScience

— Dr. David Miller 🏳️‍🌈 (@davidimiller.bsky.social) 2025-05-02T01:37:21.187Z

I can’t do that in 240 characters, David, so I thought I’d share my story here.

without nsf, i’d never have started my career

I was a first-generation college student who failed his first physics course. I failed it so perfectly that I don’t think anyone could have done it better. I had taken the same course in high school, but still failed it.

Honestly, I was not a prepared college student. I had no understanding of what it meant to do college. I was also an under-resourced student. I worked overnight at a local copy shop to pay my rent and bills.

So the choice of going to class or going to bed after a 10 hour shift was pretty clear…zzzzzz

But it didn’t help that I didn’t know how to be a good student. I lost my scholarship, dropped out of college, and started working full time – managing the copy shop.

I was unhappy, unfulfilled, and unchallenged. I felt like a failure.

After some questionable life choices, I started talking to my old friends from college. They told me professors pay students to work in their labs. I have never heard of this before, but I scrambled to find a professor who might take me on.

I returned to college shortly after emailing professors about potential open positions. Anita Cochran, who was the assistant director of the McDonald Observatory offered me a position doing “data reduction”, which was supported by her grant.

I had no idea what “data reduction” meant, but I was excited to be back in school and working with a professor.

Anita was an incredible mentor and so patient with me. Working with her, I learned to use Unix systems, write scripts in PERL, and diagnose problems with FORTRAN code. I learned how to work with data and how to think about data the way a scientist does.

Working with Anita was the first time (in the four years since I started college) that I felt like I belonged in science.

I was so excited to be working on a project that I enjoyed and that I was good at. I was able to earn money with a flexible schedule while working on campus.

My grades improved as did my study skills and social network. I got much better at physics and began to consider doing a PhD in it.

I graduated with a degree in physics from the University of Texas at Austin.

without nsf, my current career would not exist

When I started graduate school at Georgia Tech, I was unsure what I wanted to do in physics. But, I carried on. I took courses, taught labs, passed my qualifying exams, and started working in a lab.

My advisor, Mike Schatz, and I were studying optical microfluidic systems; we pulsed an infrared laser on vibrating fluid substrates and moved droplets around.

Mike taught me a lot about experimental physics and how to interface hardware with software. Like Anita, he was also a patient mentor, which seems to be something I need. LOL

But after working with Mike for two years, I wasn’t sure about a career in experimental physics. I saw his job and didn’t want it (even though I basically have it now).

The work was cool, incredibly challenging, and intellectually stimulating, but I didn’t want to be in the lab all day.

I love being a TA and really wanted to think about teaching and learning all the time.

I took time to teach physics in the Atlanta Public School system. I loved teaching and working with my students. I continue to love teaching and working with students.

When I returned to Georgia Tech, Mike asked me if I wanted to continue doing a PhD with him, but in physics education.

He had just been awarded an NSF grant to integrate computing into Georgia Tech’s introductory physics curriculum. I was excited to work on this project and learn more about how students learn physics.

I met with Mike’s postdoc and, in about a week, we started working on the project together.

All of my PhD work was supported by this NSF grant. And this isn’t just intellectual work, my family including my first child benefitted from the paychecks that NSF provided.

Through that NSF project, we integrated computing across half of the introductory physics courses at Georgia Tech. Maybe Mike knew it at the time, but our published research helped catalyze a national movement to integrate computational modeling into physics education.

Our success with this project also helped Mike earn additional NSF funding for improving educational technology in physics education and for developing new professional development for teaching assistants.

I know Mike well and all of this work is important to him because he wants to improve physics education for all students.

Now, because of our NSF work, Georgia Tech teaches computing across all of its introductory physics courses; that’s almost 5000 students per year who are learning the modern skills that they need to be successful in physics and other STEM fields.

without nsf, we’d have fewer physics educators and programs teaching computational modeling

Over the course of my career, I worked to integrate computing into physics courses. I developed those skills at Georgia Tech and later at the University of Colorado - Boulder where I worked with Steve Pollock. Steve and I worked to integrate computing into upper-division physics courses while also developing better approaches to teaching these courses.

While my work at CU was not supported by NSF, my colleagues who worked on parallel projects were supported by NSF. The CU-Boulder physics education group, at that time, was an essential community for me, the physics department at CU, and the national physics education community. So many incredible physics researchers and educators have come out of that group.

Once I started at Michigan State University, I was connected to new colleagues across the United States who were also working to integrate computing into physics education. Our collaboration, called PICUP, worked together to develop a series of successful NSF proposals to support the integration of computing into physics courses nationwide.

With the support of the NSF, we analyzed the state of computing in physics education, developed networks of physics educators, and created professional development opportunities for physics faculty. We also developed open sets of curricular materials that are now used in physics courses across the country.

This project has been incredibly successful and has helped thousands of faculty and thus, tens of thousands of students to learn physics with computing.

Because of NSF, this project continues to grow and expand.

With an active NSF grant, we are building a deeper national network of computational physics educators and supporting regional networks of faculty to host local, accessible, and more sustainable professional development opportunities for physics educators across the country.

Our decade of work was nationally recognized by the American Physical Society with the Excellence in Physics Education Award in 2023.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that NSF also supported our efforts to bring this work to Michigan high school physics teachers.

Through a collaborative NSF grant across our Natural Science and Education colleges at MSU, we taught over 100 Michigan high school physics teachers how to integrate computing into their courses. Those teachers collectively educate at least 5000 students per year.

Our NSF-funded high school initiative focused on equity. The research aimed to ensure that every student had not only equal access but appropriate support to engage with the computing tools and opportunities.

without nsf, msu students would not have great science courses

One of my favorite things about MSU is that we are not a pretentious institution; we get shit done. I love that about this place.

To me “getting shit done” is developing the best educational spaces and opportunities that we can for all students. I’m thankful that so many of my colleagues in physics, computational science, and across the Natural Science college agree.

Maybe not with the coarse language, but with the sentiment.

NSF grants awarded to myself and colleagues in chemistry and biology helped us design studies of and develop the evidence for the incredible science courses that we are now teaching across the College of Natural Science.

Our project designed learning environments so that students do the work of science not just experience it passively. It’s called three dimensional learning, which is just a fancy term for having students actually work with science ideas, practices, and ways of thinking. These courses often have students working together on challenging concepts and practices.

Not only do these courses teach students science more deeply, we find that students are more likely to succeed in the courses (i.e., lower drop, fail, withdrawal rates) – so less money is paid by students to retake courses – and they are more likely to stay in science – so we retain more talented and diverse students in the sciences.

These courses are enormous - at MSU, we teach 100-500 students in a single STEM class. We are teaching thousands of students per year in these formative and innovative courses.

The ideas and efforts are widely shared across the country, and many of our colleagues are also working to develop and implement these ideas in their courses. Some NSF grants helped support their work in the past and continue to support their work now.

without nsf, my research community would not exist

I work in STEM Education research, which is a field that is supported by NSF. It’s also a field that has been directly targeted by the current administration. The post below shows the impact so far.

UPDATE: We have data on >1000 terminated #NSF grants at grant-watch.us. Thanks to all who have been contributing data the past few days. We've also added a "Reports" section with some analyses. For NSF, we see that the STEM education directorate has been absolutely pummeled.

— Noam Ross (@noamross.net) 2025-04-30T22:49:18.970Z

I have had some grants cancelled, but not yet any of my research grants.

My friends and colleagues have not been so lucky.

They are scrambling to find new funding sources, trying to organize their research, and working to ensure their students can pay their bills and buy food.

My research community (as you can see in the post above) receives a lot of funding from NSF.

That’s a true statement. NSF is the largest funder of STEM education research in the US.

That money is allocated by Congress to support research that is important to the country. It’s what we do and it’s what we’ve done for a long time.

From my own vantage point, this money is what has improved the quality of science education in our colleges and universities. It’s what helped support better learning outcomes for students. It’s what ensured US STEM graduates are able to compete for the best science jobs in the world.

NSF has sustained my research community and my career. STEM Education is a big challenge, there’s many places and people involved. Students come with wide-ranging resources and experiences. The industries continue to shift and develop. There’s a lot of work to do to ensure that all students are able to learn science and be successful in STEM.

NSF has supported my colleagues, my mentees, and my students. I’ve been fortunate to be a part of two research groups at MSU supported by NSF. Each has a diverse group of researchers, postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduate researchers. But, we all work together to improve science education for all students.

NSF support has helped me build the life and family that I have today. Without the paycheck I received though NSF grants, I would not have been able to pay rent, buy food, or pay for childcare. As an assistant professor in a new location, expenses added up quickly and awarded NSF grants provided the summer financial support that I needed to get started. Folks with PhDs don’t make as much money as you think and we are often not paid all summer.

without nsf, we’ll lose a generation of scientists and engineers

Without NSF, I wouldn’t have a career in STEM education.

But, more importantly with the potential impact across STEM Education, millions of students will lose some incredible opportunities to learn science.

Tens of thousands of future scientists and engineers will not have the support to develop the skills and knowledge for the jobs that they want.

And, the US will lose a generation of scientists and engineers who, if not for the current administration, would have been able to contribute to the US economy and society.

I don’t want to imagine a future without NSF.