One Year After Leaving NIH

One year ago, I left a job as a Program Official at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that I had held for 22 years. When you work somewhere for that long, it becomes a part of your identity. It’s not an exaggeration to say that my life and sense of self was centered around being an NIH scientist. To leave all of a sudden, unexpectedly and without sufficient time to plan was extraordinarily disorienting. My exit led to a profound sense of grief and loss that I did not fully appreciate in advance. A year later I find myself still processing it all as I continue to chart a path forward.

I don’t regret leaving, but I feel deep sadness that so many of us felt we had to. As I reflect back on the events of a year ago, I’d want to share a sampling of what it was like to work in a completely nonsensical and chaotic agency environment, purposefully designed to spread dread, trauma, hate, and fear.

On January 21, 2025 a memo from HHS informed us of a freeze on all external communications. All meetings, all correspondence, everything cancelled until further notice.

On January 22, 2025 NIH staff learned that Dr. Matthew Memoli had been appointed acting director of NIH instead of the usual process of having the current Deputy serve as the acting director. According to reporting in The Atlantic, Memoli had no prior experience overseeing awards of external grants or running a large agency. But, in 2021, he had called COVID vaccine mandates “extraordinarily problematic” in an email to Anthony Fauci (then director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) and reportedly refused the shot himself which caused Jay Bhattacharya, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the NIH, to praise Memoli on social media as “a brave man who stood up when it was hard.” Also, Memoli had previously been deemed noncompliant with an internal review, two officials said, after he submitted a DEI statement calling the term “offensive and demeaning.” This appears to be the basis for his appointment.

Also, on January 22, 2025 we were told to report staff who worked on issues related to “DEI.”

A memo dated January 27, 2025 from OMB announced the pause of all grants, loans, and other financial assistance programs in the service of “ending wokeness.”

On January 28, 2025 we all received the infamous “Fork in the Road” email urging us to resign from the civil service.

By February 4, 2025 several news outlets reported that HHS employees, including some of my friends/colleagues at the NIH, were being terrorized after a dark money right-wing “DEI Watchlist” website published a list of “targets” it claimed were “involved with DEI initiatives.” A majority of these civil servants were Black. Some of my NIH friends were doxxed at their homes. According to NBC news, Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, learned about the site when a federal health worker sent it to him and he said: “This is a scare tactic to try to intimidate people who are trying to do their work and do it admirably.” “It’s clear racism.” NIH staff who were victimized were terrified, and they were offered no help from NIH leadership.

On February 7, 2025 an email from HHS informed us that a Presidential Memorandum dated January 20, 2025 ordered the elimination of all remote and telework arrangements. All HHS employees would be required to work at a physical HHS facility unless otherwise excepted by applicable law. I eventually received the orders to personally return to the physical office space full time beginning on March 17.

Excerpt from email:

February 9, 2025 marked the release of NOT-OD-25-068 which immediately capped indirect costs at 15% for all awards. (This action was challenged in court and eventually was determined to be illegal.)

On February 12, 2025 NIH’s Principal Deputy Director, Larry Tabak, departed, and then the next day on February 13, 2025 NIH’s Deputy Director for Extramural Research, Mike Lauer, also left, and the anti-vaccine conspiracy theory proponent RFK Jr. was confirmed by the Senate to become the next HHS Secretary.

On February 14, 2025 approximately 1000 NIH probationary employees were fired without any advance notice. Even their supervisors didn’t know about the firings in advance. In my office at NCCIH, we lost several of our amazing program analyst colleagues that day. It was senseless, cruel, and tragic.

By February 20, 2025 I learned that all of our new grant awards were “on hold” although we were not given any reasons for this hold.

On February 22, 2025 a cryptic email from OPM ordered us to “reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.”

On February 28, 2025 a list was circulated internally at NIH documenting 76 Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) that were immediately canceled by the Trump administration. I have uploaded this list of Terminated NOFOs so that you can read them and see what was lost.

On March 3, 2025, HHS/NIH ordered all staff to comply with the OPM 5 bullets email requirement, so we all did. It was ridiculous.

In a March 5, 2025 email NIH staff learned that HHS received authorization from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to offer Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) to eligible employees effective for 10 business days (from March 3 to March 14, 2025). This gave us just 9 days to decide whether to take it or not. Initially we were told that if we chose to take VERA, we could continue working until October 1, 2025, and that we would be able to cancel our VERA request at any time if we changed our minds. However, that promise was quickly changed, and we were informed that in order to take the VERA and the VSIP together would have to exit the federal government no later than April 18, 2025.

Previously federal retirement planning would be something that occurs over the course of a year or more, but we had only days to decide, plan, and file the correct forms. This was incredibly anxiety inducing in and of itself, let alone in the context of all the other ongoing chaos. As you might imagine, the NIH HR office was completely overwhelmed during this time, so we were not able to receive any of the usual personalized retirement guidance that these HR professionals used to provide. Instead, they issued FAQ lists and hosted a few sold out informational sessions on MS Teams. I was only able to join one of these webinar sessions because the rest were at maximum capacity. So, the choice to take VERA meant early retirement by self-design and by doing your own research. Good luck!

On March 6, 2025 the news media reported that the NIH had begun mass terminations of research grants that fund scientific projects because they “no longer meet agency priorities.” NIH Program Officials, like me, were not consulted. We learned about the grant cancellations at the same time as the investigators.

On March 17, 2025 I was officially ordered to report to in person work at the office, and several DOGE staffers were working on the 10^th floor of my building. I saw them walking around for several weeks. They were silent and wouldn’t speak to me.

On March 21, 2025 NIH staff were informed that we were no longer allowed to use any “nicknames” in our staff directory. Only our legal names would be allowed. Because, of course, if someone refers to me as “Liz” instead of “Elizabeth” that might promote gender ideology and extremism?

On March 27, 2025 HHS announced its “Transformation to Make America Healthy Again” agenda by Restructuring HHS with plans to cut the staff from 82,000 to 62,000. NIH would decrease by 1200.

April 1, 2025 will go down as “one of the darkest days” for biomedical science and public health as NIH purged agency leadership and instituted mass layoffs. Approximately 1,200 to 1,300 staff members at NIH were laid off, as part of a broader, sweeping reduction-in-force across federal health agencies. These cuts targeted administrative, communications, and support roles, along with the removal of four main scientists and several institute directors, marking an intense restructuring of the agency. My office lost about 40% of our staff that day. Also, on this same day Jay Bhattacharya was sworn in as the new NIH Director.

On April 2, 2025, the newly appointed NIH Director, Jay Bhattacharya, issued his first official action: a most ridiculous (non-scientific) order for staff to standardize their email signatures. Imagine being the leader of the world’s largest and most famous biomedical research enterprise in the world and choosing this as your first imperative on the job! What a joke!

On April 10, 2025 the NIH told us “never mind,” you can stop sending your 5 bullet accomplishment lists to Elon Musk now.

On April 11, 2025 we learned from the news media (not from NIH leadership) that DOGE had complete control over NIH payment systems and grants.gov.

By mid-April, I knew I had made the right choice. The chaos wasn’t ending. The cruelty wasn’t stopping. Staying would have meant watching more colleagues fired, more research canceled, more expertise dismissed as ‘woke.’ I couldn’t be complicit by staying silent, and I couldn’t speak while still employed. So, I left.

April 18, 2025 was my last day reporting to work at NIH/NCCIH. I handed my laptop, iPhone, and NIH employee badge to my supervisor at the end of the day and that was the end of it. After 22 years there was no retirement celebration, no fanfare, just a few tears, and then I said goodbye to my friends/colleagues and left. A year later I am still processing the loss.

Sources

Bensen, J. (2025, February 14). ‘Taking away years of experience’: NIH probationary employees fired Friday: Trump administration ordered federal agencies to let probationary employees go. NBC Washington. https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/president-trump-politics/taking-away-years-of-experience-nih-probationary-employees-fired-friday/3845749/

Diamond, D., Natanson, H., & Johnson, C. Y. (2025, April 11). A DOGE engineer removed users’ access to grants.gov, threatening to further slow the process of awarding thousands of federal grants per year. The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/42jUYnr

Editorial Board. (2026, April 13). A deserved defeat on NIH funding cuts: DOGE tried to slash research grants by targeting “indirect costs.” A court ruled that to be illegal. The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/4vAtCHh

Kozlov, M. (2025, April 1). ‘One of the darkest days’: NIH purges agency leadership amid mass lay-offs. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01016-z

Kozlov, M., & Mallapaty, S. (2025, March 6). Exclusive: NIH to terminate hundreds of active research grants. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00703-1

Lovelace, B., Jr., & Edwards, E. (2025, February 4). Federal health workers terrified after ‘DEI’ website publishes list of ‘targets’: The site calls out workers who have been involved with DEI initiatives. A majority are Black. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/federal-health-workers-terrified-dei-website-publishes-list-targets-rcna190711

Masson, G. (2025, February 18). 2 NIH leaders depart as White House cuts thousands of jobs across federal health agencies. Fierce Biotech. https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/2-nih-leaders-depart-white-house-cuts-thousands-jobs-across-federal-health-agencies

Wu, K. J. (2025, February 27). Inside the collapse at the NIH: Administration officials pressured the NIH to avoid clear advice from the agency’s own lawyers to restart grant funding now. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/02/nih-grant-freeze-biomedical-research/681853/

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2025, March 27). HHS announces transformation to make America healthy again. https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/hhs-restructuring-doge.html

This essay is part of an ongoing series reflecting on what I learned over more than two decades working inside the U.S. biomedical research enterprise. Each piece stands alone, but together they examine how science is shaped not only by ideas and funding, but by the structures that support or constrain them.