‘We’re in the rupture’: AAAS leadership reflects on past year under Trump
By 
Rebecca Trager2026-02-18T14:30:00
Sudip Parikh, head of largest US science organisation, describes how the nation’s research community has gone from ‘turmoil’ upon Trump’s re-election to ‘rupture’ today
When the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) held its annual meeting in Boston a year ago President Trump hadn’t even been in office again for a month. The plenary session that kicked off the event this year was full of warnings and gloomy predictions from the organisation’s leadership, including its chief executive Sudip Parikh. A year ago, Parikh declared that the US scientific community was ‘in a moment of turmoil’, and at the opening address of the organisation’s 2026 meeting on 12 February he confirmed that the past year had been tough.