Just over a year ago, Jess Phoenix was in Ecuador, leading a 30-person film crew toward the spewing summit of a freshly erupting volcano. As the ground rumbled beneath their feet, the crew grew understandably nervous. But not Phoenix.

“My job is to try to understand what makes volcanoes tick,” Phoenix, a volcanologist who also runs an environmental nonprofit called Blueprint Earth, told BuzzFeed News. “I guess when other people run away, I run forwards.”

On Tuesday, Phoenix will announce her latest extreme endeavor, running for a spot in Congress. Her campaign joins the efforts of the science advocacy group 314 Action to inject better scientific thinking into government, by pushing actual scientists to ditch their field jackets and lab coats and run for office. Along with one other candidate, Phoenix will run to unseat a member of the group of politicians most notorious among scientists: the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, also known by some as the House “anti-science” committee. Her official paperwork will be filed in early April.

The Representatives they are trying to replace — Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, who chairs the committee, and Rep. Steve Knight of California — will both be up for re-election in 2018, and 314 Action wants to make sure they don’t come back. (The group also wants to unseat another committee incumbent, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, but hasn't yet confirmed a candidate.)

The races are just another symptom of bubbling scientific discontent with US politics, best seen with the hundreds of thousands of supporters for a March for Science in Washington, DC, in April, as well as “rogue” Twitter accounts for national parks and federal science agencies gaining large followings. Trump’s introduction of vaccine opponents and climate deniers onto the political stage has spurred scientists, usually insistent on staying out of political disputes, to speak out.

None of the politicians targeted by the PAC responded to a BuzzFeed News request for comment on their scientist opponents.

314 Action’s name and nerdy tagline “Pi is everywhere” (3.14 are the first three digits of the mathematical constant) speak to its insistence that science can no longer stay sealed off in university labs. The group says it’s seen an unprecedented level of interest and support from the scientific community. Over 3,000 scientists, roughly split between men and women, have signed up and expressed interest in running for office — everything from school boards to state legislatures to Congress. And they’ve raised over $300,000 in online donations in the last 45 days, which doesn't include large one-time donations from wealthy funders, said 314 Action’s executive director, Josh Morrow.

But many wonder whether the group will be able to translate interest from scientists into actual political success, and more importantly, whether pitting scientists versus politicians will be good for science in the end.

“[Scientists] are generally not people that want to bring attention to themselves — these are people who feel greatly motivated by the statements that we’re hearing from our president,” said Shaughnessy Naughton, 314 Action’s founder. A chemist by training, Naughton ran for Congress twice, in 2014 and 2016, but lost in Democratic primaries, which she says spurred her decision to start the group. “This doesn’t start with Trump — the science committee has a long, storied history of an anti-science bent. But he’s certainly elevated it.”

