Stephanie Lee

San Francisco

Senior Reporter at The Chronicle of Higher Education

Senior writer @Chronicle, writing about scholarship, scholars, and society / [email protected] / on Signal: stephaniemlee.07 / https://t.co/G5wTIjcxNR

Articles

Columbia Got Some NIH Funding Back. Then It Didn’t.

1 week ago | chronicle.com | Stephanie Lee

The National Institutes of Health is lifting its monthslong freeze on all research funding to Columbia University, according to an email sent to agency staff Wednesday. The announcement appears to undo the federal agency’s decisions this spring to stop paying scientists working on existing projects and to block new funding to the university. In the email, obtained by Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.
An NIH Grant Is Restored, With a Catch: Cut A Study on Trans Youth

1 month ago | chronicle.com | Stephanie Lee

In March, the National Institutes of Health terminated grants to an HIV-research network it had funded for decades, devastating the scientists who were conducting studies under its umbrella. One of those scientists, Kristi Gamarel at the University of Michigan, learned last week that the program was getting its funding back. But her study, about transgender youth of color, was not. Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.
The NIH Is Requiring Grantees to Follow Trump’s Anti-Trans Executive Order

1 month ago | chronicle.com | Stephanie Lee

On April 21, the National Institutes of Health notified a researcher at a teaching hospital in the Boston area that her grant was being renewed for the fourth year in a row. In most years, such confirmations are uncontroversial. But because this is not a normal year, the scientist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she does not have permission from her employer to speak to the media, dug into the fine print.
These NIH Grants Were Terminated. Now They’re Back.

1 month ago | chronicle.com | Stephanie Lee

Not long ago, Patty Kissinger, an epidemiologist at Tulane University, was one of many scientists to lose federal funding. On March 18, she was crushed to learn that the National Institutes of Health was killing her grant — a program to treat sexually transmitted infections in Black youth — on the grounds that it was about “DEI.” Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.
The Quiet Way the NIH Is Stalling Some Research Before It Starts

2 months ago | chronicle.com | Stephanie Lee

The National Institutes of Health has made headlines for terminating grants and delaying its peer-review process. But there’s another, less visible way the agency is disrupting the work of scientists nationwide: It’s quietly removing some grant applications from review for the indefinite future. Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.
Faced With Frozen NIH Funding, These Universities Are Trying to Fill the Gap

Mar 27, 2025 | chronicle.com | Stephanie Lee

Going into February, Andrew P. Capaldi was confident that the National Institutes of Health would fund his lab at the University of Arizona for the 15th year in a row. Instead, the agency unexpectedly shut down its review process and threw thousands of grant applications, including his, into limbo. The cancer biologist said he’s had to stop doing his most expensive, crucial experiments, cut his lab manager’s hours, and stop paying his undergraduate students.
NIH Funding Is at a Standstill. This Professor Is Tracking the Delays.

Feb 26, 2025 | chronicle.com | Stephanie Lee

On February 19, Annika F. Barber started counting. Barber, an assistant professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, had been gearing up for a meeting in which she and other experts would review grant applications to the National Institutes of Health. These convenings of study sections, as they’re known, are the first step in deciding who gets NIH funding.
A Scandal in Alzheimer’s Research Shows How Science Can Go Astray

Feb 4, 2025 | chronicle.com | Stephanie Lee

Billions of dollars have been spent on researching Alzheimer’s disease, which afflicts more than six million Americans and is the fifth-leading cause of death among the nation’s elderly. Yet there is no cure, and the few treatments available show only modest evidence of slowing cognitive decline. Fraudulent science may have steered the field in the wrong direction for decades, according to Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s, which was published Tuesday.
Here’s How Science Funding Could Change Under Trump

Jan 23, 2025 | chronicle.com | Stephanie Lee

President Trump once again oversees billions of dollars of funding for research into pandemics, HIV, cancer, and other fundamental areas of health and science. And once again, his administration seems determined to shake up how that money is doled out. Federal science agencies, from the Department of Energy to the National Science Foundation, fund research across the country.
Teens Are Doing AI Research Now. Is That a Good Thing?

Jan 14, 2025 | chronicle.com | Stephanie Lee

At the world’s largest artificial-intelligence conference, known as NeurIPS, Weichen Huang almost blended in. Last month in Vancouver, he was one of numerous researchers explaining their machine-learning projects to crowds of professors and engineers. But Huang wasn’t a professor, an engineer, or even a graduate student. In fact, he’s still applying to college. The 18-year-old was among the winners of NeurIPS’s first research competition for high schoolers.