This week, we’re teaming up with Silenced Science Stories, a volunteer project that shines a light on scientists whose work has been derailed by federal budget cuts and mass firings. In this episode, both of our storytellers share deeply personal accounts of how these political decisions upended their work—and the science itself.
Part 1: When an epidemiologist dedicated to preventing violence against children is suddenly fired from the CDC, she is left grappling with both the shock of losing her job and the uncertainty of what comes next.
Part 2: At a global climate conference, climate scientist Tom Di Liberto learns that Trump has been re-elected—and feels the weight of what that means for him and the fight against climate change.
Tom Di Liberto is a climate scientist and award-winning science communicator working as a public affairs specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Communication (as of March 29. He's been caught up in the government purges and is on administrative leave). As part of NOAA’s Ocean Today’s studio, he wrote and starred in NOAA’s first ever animated series Teek and Tom Explore Planet Earth. Previously he served as the senior climate scientist for NOAA’s Climate.gov and social media editor for the NOAAClimate accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. In addition to his work at NOAA, Tom also served as the lead of the Department of State’s U.S. Center at the United Nationals climate change conference COP29 in 2024. The U.S. Center is the premiere public face of the U.S. government at the UN Climate conference. As lead, Tom designed every aspect of the center from the build to the schedule to planning every event that took place. He previously served as emcee of the Department of State’s U.S. Center at the United Nations climate change conferences COP21, COP22, COP26, COP27, and COP28 Fun fact: Tom performs regularly at the Washington Improv Theater on two house teams including the Hypothesis, a team Tom started and is full of scientists and science-lovers.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
PART 1
I might have had a slightly unconventional set of heroes and dreams as a kid. My dad was a microbiology professor, and I was taught early about the genius of Louis Pasteur, the pioneering work of Watson and Crick, and I knew very well that Yersinia pestis was the bacterium responsible for millions of deaths during the Black Plague.
So given this context, it might not be so surprising that I got a copy of The Hot Zone for Christmas in sixth grade, and I was completely transfixed by the story of this dangerous novel hemorrhagic fever and the disease detectives who studied it and helped stop it during that first outbreak.
I remember asking my dad, “What is CDC and where is Atlanta and how can I get a job there?” That's how a kid from Northern Idaho first dreamed of becoming an epidemiologist and working at CDC.
I pursued that dream pretty doggedly. My first public health job was working on a large HIV study in Zambia with Emory University. And when I returned from living abroad in Zambia, I focused my full attention on finding a job at CDC.
I applied for lots of jobs and on a whim for a contract position to work in CDC's Division of Violence Prevention. The position was to support surveys on violence against children that they were implementing in Tanzania and Kenya. They were looking for somebody with global experience and were willing to hire me, even though I didn't specifically have a background in violence.
The days could be long, and the work was very hard, but I felt like I was part of science that really mattered.
In the early days I’d often spend months in the field during survey implementation, but the work never felt grueling because it was just too consequential. Seeing the high prevalence of violence that we were finding around the globe, I felt compelled to stay. I also came to better understand that adversity in childhood, especially violence, is associated with the leading causes of death and disease. So preventing it before it happens can have these major downstream effects, leading to healthier and happier communities.
I remember one of my great mentors, he was explaining to me this outsized impact that childhood violence can have on lifelong health. We were in his office. It was in the afternoon and the sun was coming in the window. I remember him saying that childhood violence is a linchpin public health issue.
And he went on to explain, because it's often associated with these devastating and lasting impacts on not just the children themselves who experience it, but also their families and communities. So hearing it explained in those terms, lynchpin, public health issue, something really clicked for me.
The science behind this connection is really fascinating and, of course, highly complex. But, to put it simply, toxic stress from violence, especially in this developmentally sensitive period of childhood, it has these lasting effects because chronic stress actually lives on in the body. And it can change the structure of the brain, it can impact neural pathways, and it can even lead to shorter telomeres. This stress has a very physiological effect on people who experience it. As I came to better understand this, I really did know that I was exactly where I needed to be.
The work became even more rewarding when we began to support countries with translating their survey data into action and impact. So about 10 years ago, we started providing support to countries to think through what data they wanted to prioritize, and then to help them identify programs and policies based on the best science of what works.
For example, the Kenya survey in 2010 provided the government with baseline data, and they immediately started acting on it. They passed laws. They introduced programs. And they seriously began to invest in preventing violence against children.
And I got to see the effect of this investment. I worked on both of Kenya’s surveys. I worked on the 2010 survey and again on the 2019 survey. I remember the first moments when I saw the data, the comparison data side by side, so the 2010 prevalence data and the 2019 prevalence data, I whooped out loud in my office and I ran to my colleagues. First, I wanted to make sure that I was actually seeing what I was seeing, that the data were correct. But it was correct and what we saw was jaw‑dropping.
We saw statistically significant declines in physical violence, emotional violence and sexual violence for both boys and girls. It still gives me chills to think about it right now. I have chills thinking about that.
So now we had the data to show that investing in violence prevention can pay off. As this was happening, I really did have this crystalline understanding of how lucky I was to be part of something that was making this big of an impact.
I knew that public health would be under threat with the second Trump administration. He was very clear about this during his campaign, Project 2025 was very clear about this. It all became more apparent in the first weeks after the inauguration with executive orders and leadership appointments and the unleashing of Elon Musk and DOGE on sister agencies like USAID. It was a really scary time.
When I think all of us at CDC were collectively holding our breath, we were also working hard to make this strong case to the administration and directly to the American people of the value of CDC, that data and science help keep Americans safe and help target response efforts across all kinds of health topics. That our prevention work had quietly saved countless lives here at home and also around the globe. But it did not work.
I first explicitly heard of cuts coming to CDC in February. It started with the firing of hundreds of probationary employees. Then soon after that, we started bracing for something called a reduction in force, or a RIF, that we were told was going to happen soon. We understood pretty clearly that the administration wanted to dramatically reduce the size of the CDC workforce and so I was expecting the RIF to be bad, and I was expecting it to directly impact my own work.
Definitely, colleagues were reassuring me and telling me I'd be okay. The idea was that even if there were major cuts to my own branch or division, I was supposed to have something called “bump and retreat” rights. What that basically means is that, since I have a long tenure and excellent performance reviews, I would be just put in another part of the agency if my own job was eliminated.
I was somewhat skeptical that I would be safe, but I continued to hold out faltering hope that my staff and I would be spared. And there was a lot of anxiety in that period. Definitely, there was sleeplessness, stress, shorn nerves.
On the morning of April 1st, I woke up a little before 6:00 AM, like I always did, to make my kids their school lunches and start prepping for my workday. I remember wondering if my kids would try to play an April Fool's Day joke on me.
I was listening to the news and portioning out apple slices and pretzels when I decided to check my work phone. I opened my phone and authenticated. First, I went to my calendar to see what meetings I had for the day and start to mentally prep, and then I opened my work email.
My heart leaped into my chest when I saw that there was an email from Health and Human Services HR at the very top of my inbox marked urgent. I had a pretty immediate physical reaction even before reading the email. My heart started to beat much faster and my stomach kind of felt like it was tied in knots. I remember I sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor to read the email.
I'm going to read it to you. It's pretty short.
“I regret to inform you that you are being affected by a Reduction in Force (RIF) action. Please find attached a notice memorandum explaining the RIF and the next steps. This RIF action does not reflect directly on your service, performance, or conduct. It's being taken solely for the reason stated in the memorandum.
After you receive this notice, you’ll be placed on administrative leave and will no longer have building access beginning Tuesday, April 1, unless directed otherwise by your leadership.
Additionally, please save this email and its attachments or forward them to a personal email for your records.
Leadership at HHS appreciates your service.
Sincerely,
Tom Nagy”
At first, I couldn't believe what I was reading. I immediately called my husband who was traveling for work and choked back tears as I read the email to him. Then I started texting with my leadership team.
“I got a RIF email,” I texted to a division leader, and she responded, “All of FEPB did,” ‑that's my branch- “and RAB and PPTB so far. I'm so sorry.”
I know that's a lot of acronyms. We are the federal government after all. But, essentially, what I was reading was that upwards of three quarters of our entire division had been fired that morning, nearly 100 of my close colleagues.
Then the texts started coming in from my own branch members. I definitely remember people using emojis, lots of emojis, because there just were not adequate words to describe what was happening.
Around this time, I had to wake my kids up for school. And as my mom used to tell me all the time, I wear my heart on my sleeve. So the moment my kids looked at my face, they knew that something was really wrong.
“Mom, are you crying?” “Mom, what's wrong?” asked my six‑ and nine‑year‑old. My middle schooler immediately knew, since he's pretty aware of the stress over the past few months and he had been more tuned in to the news.
“No, mom, you got fired this morning? No.” And he threw his arms around me and bear‑hugged me.
I don't know how I managed to get them out the door to school that morning. My brain was foggy and buzzy at the same time, and my phone was just chirping nonstop as colleagues and family were checking in with me. I was just receiving ever more devastating information about the scale of the cuts. You know, HIV prevention down 50%, lead poisoning, gone, tobacco control gone, and it just went on and on like that.
Around 9:00 AM, I did get the news that the security guards would let us come onto campus if we wanted to clean out our work spaces and attend an all‑staff meeting in person. So I started calling and texting numbers of my branch to let them know that they could come onto campus if they wanted to.
Then I started driving my three‑mile commute. It was one of those beautiful spring mornings when the sun was really bright and there was this gentle breeze that was kind of making all the new, bright green spring foliage dance. It felt very imbalanced with the emotions that I was feeling. I was mentally telling myself that I was in a state of trauma and I really needed to focus carefully on driving.
My heart and my thoughts were racing. I felt jumpy and my hands were definitely shaking. And of course, tears, so many tears leaking out of my eyes.
Pulling into campus and dodging in at the security checkpoint and then walking up to my building felt very surreal. I actually took a video of my feet making that walk so that I could pull it out and remember later what that felt like to walk to my office for the last time after doing it for 16 years.
I made my way up to the 10th floor where my office is, and I brought my boxes from home. I started packing things up and was still definitely in a state of shock. Within about 10 minutes or so, people started coming in. It was both people who had been fired and also people who had been spared. We kind of hugged and sobbed together and looked at each other, just like shaking our head. I think the mantra of the morning was something like, “I can't believe this. We did such good work. We did such important work.”
Soon enough, it was time to take the elevators back down to the first floor where our large conference rooms sit in the office building. It's definitely a strange thing to be in a room of 300‑plus people and to just palpably feel this collective anguish and shock.
We heard from our leadership about the extent of the cuts to our own center, more than 50% of staff, and that was from new hires all the way to very senior leaders. Then afterwards, we gathered for final tearful goodbyes, and then I carried my things to my car and left the campus for the last time.
We had two surveys that had completed field work and were in the data analysis and report‑writing phase, and one of those was actually in Tanzania. That felt like such a full circle for me since I started my work at CDC in 2009 working on a Tanzania survey, and then here I was finishing it out on a Tanzania survey. But now my team has no further role in that study. I desperately hope that it moves forward, and it makes the impact that we know that it can.
It's hard to express how this termination has made me feel, but having been through it, I would say it's not dissimilar from losing somebody that you really love. My job at CDC was a dream. It was “the” dream. I first imagined it in middle school, reading about Ebola by flashlight under my covers. It was so much better than I could have dreamed.
For 16 years, I worked with a group of brilliant, passionate, and kind‑hearted colleagues. I met amazing, dedicated people around the world. I crisscrossed the globe for survey implementations in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean. And we have the data to show that our work was and continues to make a huge impact.
So at the end of the day, I had a role in helping to make the world a better place for kids. What is better than that? How lucky was I?
PART 2
Not all birthdays are the same. I'm not talking about what year birthday, which, for the record, 21, really overrated. 10, 25, really underrated. No, I'm talking about the exact birth date, like what time of the year you were born.
Most are awash, but some in particular stink. December birthdays know what I'm talking about. Less presents. But early November birthdays, especially in the United States, oh, they can suck. It's really, really hard to enjoy the day when it's tied to Election Day.
Case in point. I am Tom Di Liberto. I'm a climate scientist, or at least I was at the time, at the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration or NOAA. I turned 40 last November 6, 2024. or the day after Election Day. Fun!
More fun, I celebrated that milestone by myself, seated in the second‑to‑last row in a flying metal tube somewhere over Europe. I was on my way to the United Nations Conference of the Parties Summit known as COP 29, the world's biggest and most important gathering of nations in the fight against climate change. I left on Election Day, and I landed on my birthday in a new world.
Let me take you to Baku, it's the capital of Azerbaijan, the host of COP 29, and one of the weirdest, most mentally draining, yet somehow uplifting experiences of my life. I had been planning every aspect of the US Center, which held all of the US government talks and events every day since that August. I had meticulously, some would say obsessively, plan and help create 61 different events with over 250 speakers from every aspect of society you can imagine. Me and my team of 20 people were supremely prepared.
And we knew this would take place right after election. We understand how calendars work. But you simply cannot prepare for the reaction you'd get from, literally, the entire world. Funnily enough, this wasn't new to me.
Back in 2016, I was two days in the COP 22 in Marrakesh, Morocco when that election happened. Back then, the two weeks that followed felt like everyone was shell‑shocked, walking around in a daze. I expected something similar, maybe a dash of anger, a heavy pinch, so to speak. I figured I would turn from the US Center lead to the US Center punching bag, dangling out front for passersby to take their shot, unleash their frustrations that, once again, the US sided with the climate denier.
Now, the first day of our schedule was packed. They're always packed the first day with high‑ranking government officials. John Podesta, the head of the US delegation, kicked things off. Every seat was taken. There was a crowd three rows deep that formed in the walkway outside of our pavilion. Everybody, and I mean everyone was waiting.
“Uh‑oh, here come the shouts, the protests. Here come the anger,” I thought. Instead, nothing. Actually, something better than nothing. Solidarity. Every non‑US speaker was really ramming home that point that we're not stopping this fight. Every visitor to our pavilion made the point to comfort us, to let us know that they support us. And more importantly, to let us know that the rest of the world is going to keep moving forward even as the US took a giant step backwards.
Now, it wasn't all candy and butterflies. For one, there's only so many events talking about climate finance that a human being can sit through before words and numbers and colors lose all meaning. And, two, every federal agency attending was staggered over two weeks.
So you think talking about the election was hard at a climate conference. Try doing that over and over and over and over and over again with everyone. I debriefed it with the EPA. I shook my head along with the Department of Energy. I cursed loudly with the CDC and HHS. I mean, RFK Jr., are you kidding?
And I consult many people, including my friends at NOAA, who came by in week two. All of these people, like myself, knew that even though we were federal employees, we'd likely be fired in the months to come. In a lot of ways, the US Center felt like a living wake for the death of federal climate action. I, Tom Di Liberto, was the proprietor of the funeral home. I'd put on a brave face and absorb all of this pain, even while knowing that my funeral was likely next.
But wakes aren't only sad. It's still a place where people come together. They talk about the good times. We tell each other, “We're here for you,” and we grieve. And in this case, it also meant charting a course forward.
The last nine to ten months have been bad. Bad doesn't really do it justice, so I got some help from a thesaurus. It was also lousy and dreadful. It was ghastly, abominable, and also extremely odious.
And I speak to you today as a former federal employee at NOAA. You see, even though I worked at NOAA as a contractor for almost 13 years and as a federal employee for 13 days short of two years, I was cast aside and fired as a probationary employee on February 27th, two weeks before my probation period ended. I was then reinstated by court order on March 17th and then re‑fired again on April 10th when the court order expired. You know that Office episode where Michael Scott talks about getting a vasectomy and then getting it reversed? Like, snip‑snap, snip‑snap, snip‑snap, and he talked about how much it hurts? Well, that was me and countless other people across the government. We were getting vasectomies and getting them undone, metaphorically, which makes sense in a weird way, because we're all getting screwed.
Living through that was like I was on a sitcom. Oh, the great Jim Halpert‑esque faces I made to invisible cameras.
The day I was fired, I was sitting in a cubicle that wasn't mine, but shared, first come, first serve. I just sort of knew that today was the day I was going to get fired. Earlier in the week, people were fired from other parts of the Department of Commerce, and whispers that NOAA was next were turning into shouts all week.
The same time I was in that random cubicle, two of my friends and colleagues were in a meeting with the new political staff of NOAA when the new chief of staff was taken aside and told the firings are happening now this afternoon. That's how those two friends found out their careers were over at NOAA. One of them was my supervisor. He literally found out that he was fired and then had to set up a video call with me to tell me that I was also fired.
We all then got a chain letter‑like email at 2:45 PM that might as well have read, “Dear (insert name here)…” that dismissed us and told us we had to be out by 5:00 PM. Almost 15 years of service. Poof. Done and gone.
The second time they fired me after the court order that reinstated us expired was a lot easier to take. The inhumanity of it all was just comically bonkers at that point. All I could do is laugh when the next “Dear John” letter popped up in my inbox.
I was a climate scientist, a science communicator, and a public affairs specialist at NOAA. That's what I did. I thought of myself as sort of this climate Swiss Army knife for the agency. If someone asked NOAA for a talk on climate change, I was likely the one who gave it. If someone needed talking points on a certain weather or climate topic, I probably wrote them. If NOAA wanted to create its first ever animated series for kids on how awesome our planet is, I wrote the five‑part series and I started it. It's called Teek and Tom Explore Planet Earth. It's awesome, and it's still up. You should check it out.
And when it came to organizing how the US government would communicate in front of the whole world how the country was working to fight climate change, the State Department turned to me.
I could talk about how things are right now but, honestly, shitty and terrifying would suffice. You all get that. Every day is a seemingly new monstrous attack on science, progress, and who we are as a people.
Back on November 6th, 2024, my birthday, I fully expected the next three weeks to suck big time. And it did. Let's be real. Knowing that excellent work would stop and excellent people would be fired is hard. But I left COP 29 with a renewed sense of determination. Americans and the world weren't going to stop caring about and trying to halt climate change. And unlike 2016, folks did not walk around in a daze. It's just the opposite. Clear‑eyed with full hearts. Can't lose.
The fight to stop climate change was never going to be easy. If COP 29 reminded me of one thing, though, it's that we are on the side of humanity. And people who fight for that, for each other, never give up.
And just so you know, completely unrelatedly, my birthday is the day before Election Day in 2028. No reason. But, you know, let's make that a happy week, okay?
Thanks.