John Mather is head of the Office of the Chief Scientist at NASA
That is an interesting move by Stern.
And Paul Hertz directs Science Policy, Process and Ethics Office!
Which puts him in charge of solicitation, review and awards! Yay Paul!
Mather remains JWST senior project scientist. So, I'm guessing JWST is safe from cuts ;-)
This will be very interesting: Stern and Mather are both experienced scientists in charge of ongoing missions.
They ought to have a lot of disgression within the Science Mission Directorate, but things could still get very painful if the SMD budget is squeezed out by Exploration Development.
I think the next 18 months might be very interesting, in the sense of brand new large roller coasters being interesting.
(h/t NASAwatch)