Meet Megan O'Rourke, The Former Federal Climate Scientist Running For Congress

Dr. Megan O’Rourke once managed more than $200 million in climate research funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Then she walked away. The Trump administration’s escalating interference in science made her position untenable.

As the national science liaison for climate change at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, she had overseen major programs and grants. But the work itself was brought to a halt.

In her words, “My work that I had done was taken off the internet. The programs that I had worked on were stopped. And I was an author on the National Climate Assessment. That work was stopped also.”

For O’Rourke, this was the breaking point. A tenured professor turned federal scientist, she had entered public service to strengthen U.S. food security and prepare the country for climate change. But when climate reports disappeared from agency websites, grant applications were frozen, and research was subjected to political review, she concluded that she could no longer, as she put it, “in good conscience continue to work for this administration.”

This summer, O’Rourke resigned. Weeks later, she filed to run for Congress in New Jersey’s 7th District, a swing seat Democrats see as one of the most competitive in the country. “There are very few scientists in Congress,” she said. “I believe there are only three PhD STEM scientists right now. I’m running because I’m standing up to this administration. I’m standing up for science.” (STEM is a common shorthand referring to the combination of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.)

O’Rourke’s story reflects a broader tension: the growing politicization of science and its consequences for American society. She described how grant programs at USDA were halted or subjected to political review, and noted that some scientists she has spoken with are now self-censoring their research proposals to avoid controversy. “I saw this assault on climate change science,” she recalled. “We started to have DOGE reviews of our grants and keyword searches to cancel grants, which I did not think was appropriate,” referring to the Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory body in the President’s office previously overseen by technologist and businessman Elon Musk. The result, she fears, is both intellectual stagnation and economic loss. “I’ve already been talking to scientists around the country who are literally leaving and taking jobs in other countries,” referring to the widespread concern that a brain drain of American scientists to Europe, China and other countries that are capitalizing on the ongoing disruptions to American science has already begun. “What a waste of taxpayer dollars,” she concluded.

Her campaign is rooted not only in her scientific credentials but also in her personal history. In our conversation, O’Rourke described growing up in Blairstown, New Jersey, in a working-class family that sometimes relied on programs like Medicaid, WIC, and Head Start. She recalled holding a series of jobs to support herself while pursuing higher education, eventually earning degrees at Stony Brook, Iowa State, and Cornell, where she completed a Ph.D. in agricultural ecology. Later, at Virginia Tech, she earned tenure studying sustainable agriculture. She returned to New Jersey determined to represent families like the one she came from. “I come from the more rural working class part of New Jersey District 7,” she said. “That’s something I really want to see represented in the Democratic Party.”

At the core of her message is the conviction that science is both an economic engine and a democratic necessity. “Public investments in research and development have a well-established positive return on investment,” she said. Cutting science budgets, she argues, undermines not only innovation but also U.S. competitiveness.

On climate change, the costs are already clear, O’Rourke explained. “We have storms in New Jersey that are taking away the sand on beaches, clear economic impacts. But even in the district, we had flash floods this summer that, you know, people have died,” she said, referring to severe weather that affected the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut in July 2025.

For O’Rourke, defending science is inseparable from defending democracy. “I believe that science is fundamental to our human values. It’s fascinating. It drives our wonder about the world, but it also drives economic development.” Her candidacy is a test of whether voters in one New Jersey swing district are ready to send a scientist to Washington to make that case.