The director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced his resignation today, 16 months before his 6-year term ends, in a letter to staff obtained by Science. “I believe that I have done all I can to advance the mission of the agency and feel that it is time to pass the baton to new leadership,” writes Sethuraman Panchanathan, a computer scientist who was nominated to lead NSF by then-President Donald Trump in December 2019 and was confirmed by the Senate in August 2020. “I am deeply gr...