To the editor:
I read about marine biology in the Shady Grove Elementary School library. I got hooked on space exploration by building a fake rover out of a scooter for a North Davie Middle School project. North Carolina State University launched my career in biological research.
North Carolina prepared me to be the scientist I am today and now I get to give back to my community by teaching students at a local university. The amazing people in this community supported my ambitions to be a scientist, and now I pass that on as a professor with a research lab that functions as an incredible training environment.
But increasingly, it looks like I won’t be able to do that anymore. Science is being destroyed and you should have a say about that happening. A large part of science in this country is funded by taxpayers like you. We scientists take that money and stretch it as far as possible, to make the most impact we can, because you trust us to do work that benefits you. We work in local communities on the problems that matter to you.
For example, the National Science Foundation funds two major “Engines”, multimillion dollar grants that are being spent in your neighborhood. One is supporting Regenerative Medicine in the Piedmont Triad in collaboration with Wake Forest University School of Medicine. The other is focused on Textile Innovations in collaboration with The Industrial Commons based out of Morganton, to modernize North Carolina’s historical role in textiles.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has scientists around NC working on watermelon diseases, livestock breeding, and other critical innovations for our farms and food supplies.
The National Institutes of Health can turn $1 in taxpayer funding into >$2.50 of economic impact because of the jobs, cures, and information that it funds including supporting the major hospitals in our state.
Research funded by the government must be justified in how it benefits the public and shared with the public. There are no shareholders to get rich. There are no business plans to maximize profits. There is just funding of the best and brightest with the top ideas to benefit us, the people.
Most people in our country do not know what is happening to science.
They don’t know that there are illegal pauses on funding that may cause the majority of scientific labs in this country to close – most labs only receive 10% of the funding they apply for and it only lasts for a few years.
They don’t know that their kids won’t have training opportunities in college; universities won’t be able to conduct research because of cuts to “indirect costs” that keep the lights on and janitors employed.
They don’t know that basic research that is the foundation of medicine, transportation, technology is all going away, causing damage for years to come that industry cannot make up for.
Please don’t be one of those people. Call your representatives to tell them that Davie County values science. Davie County benefits from science. And Davie County is committed to American science staying the greatest in the world.
Morgan Carter
Mecklenburg County