The 2025 Future Science Prize Week - Laureates' Dialogue with the Youth Inspires 200 local students to explore science

Inspiring the younger generation’s passion for science and nurturing future technological innovatorsstands as one of the key missions of the Future Science Prize. The 2025 Future Science Prize Week(“Prize Week”), co-organised by the Future Science Awards Foundation and the Hong Kong Academyof Sciences, once again hosted the "Laureates' Dialogue with the Youth". The event was successfullyheld this morning (26 October) at the Hong Kong Space Museum, where laureates of the 2025 FutureScience Prize, including Xing XU and Zhonghe ZHOU (Life Science Prize), Xi DAI and Hong DING(Physical Science Prize), engaged in face-to-face exchanges with nearly 200 students from local secondary schools.

Xi DAI(Middle) and Hong DING(Right), Laureates of the "Physical Science Prize", shared their contributions to the computational prediction and experimental realisation of topological electronic materials. They engaged in face-to-face exchanges with local secondary school students to share their personal experiences with China's first Olympic gold medalist inSpringboard Diving, GAO Min(Left). Image source: the Future Science Prize

Xing XU(Middle) and Zhonghe ZHOU(Right), Laureates of the “Life Science Prize", presented their pioneering work on the discovery of fossil evidence demonstrating the origin of birds from dinosaurs. Andrew Lau(Left), a student at the Faculty of Medicine, Chineses University of Hong Kong hosted the sharing session. Image source: the Future Science Prize

China's first Olympic gold medalist in Springboard Diving, GAO Min, also participated in the event. She joined this year’s award winners in interacting with the youth, sharing her experiences of perseverance throughout her athletic journey, and in the spirit that closely aligns with the dedication of scientists. Students participating in the event seized this rare opportunity to ask renowned scientists questions, demonstrating their strong interest in and exploratory attitude toward science, marking the first step in their journey into scientific research.

The 2025 Future Science Prize Week held the “Laureates' Dialogue with the Youth" today, aiming to inspire the younger generation’s passion for science and nurture future technological innovators through face-to-face exchanges between award-winning scientists and Hong Kong students, sharing their research experiences. Image source: the Future Science Prize

The 2025 Future Science Prize Week held the “Laureates' Dialogue with the Youth" today, aiming to inspire the younger generation’s passion for science and nurture future technological innovators through face-to-face exchanges between award-winning scientists and Hong Kong students, sharing their research experiences. Image source: the Future Science Prize

NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration has fired members of an independent board that oversees the National Science Foundation.

Members of the National Science Board received an email on Friday sent from the Presidential Personnel Office “on behalf of President Donald J. Trump" stating that their position was “terminated, effective immediately.”

“I wasn’t entirely surprised, to be honest,” said dismissed board member Keivan Stassun in an email. Stassun, who works at Vanderbilt University, added that the decision was “enormously disappointing.”

The National Science Board was created in 1950 to advise the president and Congress on science and engineering policy, approve major funding awards and guide NSF’s future.

It's typically made up of 25 members appointed by the president who serve staggered, six-year terms. The fired scientists hail from academia and industry and specialize in areas including astronomy, math, chemistry and aerospace engineering.

Every member of the current 22-person board was let go, according to terminated member Yolanda Gil. The board had planned to meet in person next week and was finalizing a report on the state of U.S. science, Gil said in an email.

“I think this is one more indication of the sweeping changes that the administration has in mind for the NSF,” said Gil, who works at the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California.

Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, said in a statement the move was “a dangerous attack on the institutions and expertise that drive American innovation and discovery."

The Trump administration tried to cut the science foundation's $9 billion budget by more than half last year. Congress maintained NSF's funding, but a similar slash is once again on the table for the coming year.

Without an advisory board in the way this time, Stassun said, such cuts may be easier to execute.

It could “eviscerate investments in fundamental research and in the training of the next generation of scientists and engineers for our nation," Stassun said.

The science foundation's headquarters was also relocated to a smaller building. Last year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would be moving into the NSF's former base in Alexandria, Virginia.

The National Science Foundation directed a request for comment to the White House. In an emailed statement, the White House said the powers given to the National Science Board when it was created may need to be updated. The science foundation's work “continues uninterrupted,” the statement said.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

FILE - The headquarters of the National Science Foundation is photographed May 29, 2025, in Alexandria, Va. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

FILE - The headquarters of the National Science Foundation is photographed May 29, 2025, in Alexandria, Va. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)