Massachusetts scientists came together Tuesday evening at the Robbins Memorial Town Hall in Arlington to discuss their concerns about the Trump administration’s disruption of scientific research with U.S. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, who recently won the Democratic primary to retain her seat as representative for the Massachusetts’ 5th Congressional District.
“It’s one thing to say NIH or the CDC lost its funding, that’s tough [for scientists], but that’s not usually a tangible thing for humans, we don’t connect with that,” said Union of Concerned Scientists (USC) Organizing Manager Nick Savelli in an interview with Cambridge Day. Savelli, the town hall’s lead organizer, explained that the evening’s goal was “to connect what the impact of [funding freezes] are, so that when [Clark] is defending these budget line items in Congress, she’s defending [local scientists].”
Clark’s district includes much of Cambridge, including Harvard University. The UCS, headquartered near the corner of Brattle Square and Mount Auburn Street, is a science advocacy organization that supports a network of more than 26,000 scientists and other technical experts across the country.
Funding loss is personal
Yarrow Axford, who helped organize the town hall, moved to Massachusetts in 2025 to pursue a new path in her career as a science communicator. She previously taught as an adjunct professor at Northwestern University, where she spent a decade as a climate scientist and educator.
She did not leave Northwestern because of the current administration’s attacks on university-based science, which included a temporary freeze of nearly $790 million in research funding at Northwestern, but she relayed her colleagues’ experiences.
“Everything that the federal government has done for so many decades to support scientific research in the U.S. and create the most vibrant scientific ecosystem in the world is being undermined right now,” said Axford.
In late 2025, Northwestern came to an agreement with the government to restore much of its funding. But the pause in funding had a cost and for Axford, they felt personal.
Axford has Lyme disease, and she said that when the Trump administration froze Northwestern funds, she learned that “promising” Lyme research at the university was temporarily halted by the freeze.
The research program was led by late Northwestern bacteriologist Brandon Jutras, and had made several recent breakthroughs, before the federal funding freeze disrupted operations.
“It was just so painful to learn that [the funding had been halted],” said Axford. “Here in Massachusetts, we need more information about how to deal with tick-borne illnesses, and here’s this fabulous research that is put on hold because of destructive nonsense.”
While temporary freezes or confusion about grant funding do not affect all research programs equally, Axford said that “trust in the federal governments and the ability to plan around that trust” may never bounce back.
She also pointed out that universities typically choose how many students to admit to their programs based on how much federal funding they receive, but now many institutions were at a loss over how much funding they could realistically count on.
Last year, for example, the Harvard Crimson reported that Harvard University’s Biostatistics graduate program had to cut its admitted class in half, and the Population Health Sciences program planned to make 25% fewer offers in the following admissions cycle. Statistician Sebastian Haneuse attributed these cuts to confusion with federal grant funding, according to the Crimson.
Concerned Scientists
Four panelists from different stages of their science careers were brought together to speak with Clark before a crowd that numbered in the hundreds. Outside, dozens demonstrated with pro-Palestinian and climate action groups, with one protestor making it inside and briefly interrupting Clark’s introduction.
All panelists could offer a human perspective of the difficulties scientists face in the United States, and all pointed to the “brain drain” from American universities and research institutions.
Panelist and Ph.D. student Kristen Ammons, who has conducted research funded by NASA, told Clark that the career path she had expected to follow had all but disappeared.
She pointed to the more than 10,000 federally-employed Ph.D. scientists removed from their posts by the current administration and explained that “those who would be providing me with reference letters” were now her “competitors” in the job market.
This loss of a guaranteed career for Ph.D. scientists was echoed by panelists and Boston University professors Lucy Hutyra and Jack Dennerlein, who both spoke of students and early-career researchers leaving their programs or reconsidering their careers in the sciences.
Dennerlein told the story of Manny, a Ph.D. student who received money from the federal government to study language recovery of stroke patients. Under the current administration, the grant was abruptly canceled, and the research halted.
“At this stage, we don’t know what to expect, and so therefore we can’t plan appropriately,” said Dennerlein.
He also said that when stability is lost in science, more than just research is lost. “We lose discoveries that improve the lives of all Americans.”
Money Problems
It’s not just scientific discovery that suffers, scientists said.
Panelist David Nelson, whose company Aerodyne Research makes scientific instruments, said he built his Billerica-based company “with the help of consistent federal government investment.” But now that the status quo had been upended, “the most powerful scientific enterprise ever created is being disbanded before our eyes.”
Beyond direct research funding, his company relies on instrument sales to survive, which have fallen as scientists have seen their own budgets be cut or frozen. Nelson also won a federal grant to study the chemical pollutants excreted by chemical holding tanks, but since the election more than a year ago, he hasn’t gotten “a single penny.”
He added that ifwhen the government again decides to focus on “what is coming out of those chemical holding things,” the work may wind up being outsourced to Europe or China.
For a small company like his, prolonged disruption could mean bleeding jobs, and eventually losing “60 high-tech jobs” if the company is forced to shutter its operations.
Several panelists stressed the idea that damage done now cannot be easily reversed by restoring funding. Nelson said his company took decades to develop, “and that could be destroyed in the next years or several months.”
Clark saw the loss as particularly significant in Massachusetts science, which she said was the best in the nation at creating drugs and bringing them to the market. “But if we take people out, we have nothing,” said Clark.
A political fight
Questions from the audience shifted the discussion to the people waiting on current scientific research, as well as who has the authority to propel it.
Tom Hopcroft, who ran in the 2nd Middlesex Race before dropping out in August, asked Clark about what Congress could do to remedy pauses on rare-disease trials and research. His son has a rare liver disease. In response, Clark said the work to treat rare diseases had to be done “in conjunction” between scientists and the government.
“The benefits that we can glean from this extend far beyond any one particular disease,” said Clark.
Another audience member, Laura Senier, a Sociology and Health Sciences professor at Northeastern University, focused her questions on the proposed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) changes which critics say would give the body more power to pause and terminate scientific grants. She also asked what the Democrat minority in both the House and Senate could do to fight for science.
Calling the proposal “concerning,” Clark blamed Republicans, saying that while some GOP party members were some of the greatest supporters of government funding for the sciences, they “don’t talk about it anymore.”
She said the solution was helping the Democrats win back the House. “When we win, we hold the gavels, we have subpoena power and we can halt this, and that is exactly what we are going to do.”
Hopcroft told Cambridge Day after the panel that he was astounded by the Trump administration’s approach to the sciences, saying that, “every time something is delayed, there are people for whom it is a life or death thing.”
“Why would you fight science, and progress,” said Hopcroft. “You’re human too, your family may have rare diseases and chronic conditions, so you would think that everyone would care about that.”
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