Sarah Gaines worried something was up when she and her colleagues at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography got called into a morning meeting last Thursday.
The Ivy-league educated scientist lives with her husband and two school-age children in Narragansett. She leads a project in marine conservation in Madagascar.
But Gaines, 46, said that nothing in her career had prepared her for what happened last week. Just minutes into the meeting, she texted her husband:
“I just got fired.”
Her program is part of the university’s more than $66 million portfolio funded by the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, targeted by the Trump administration. Gaines is one of 11 of URI’s grant-funded employees at the Coastal Resources Center who last week received termination notices. Their jobs are being eliminated as of the end of this month.
In the wake of the administration’s attacks on funding for the sciences, federal officials have fired thousands of employees nationwide, tried to freeze research funding and have drafted new measures to reduce future funding.
The loss of funding for international work performed at places like URI, Gaines said, is about more than jobs. “There’s a lot of work that happens between people who care about the same things, who care about our coastlines, who care about…our biodiversity,’’ she said. “And working with people who are in Madagascar or in Micronesia or in the Philippines on those issues, that builds a real sense of understanding and the foundations for peace.’’
On Friday, Gaines plans to join colleagues and supporters from around the state at a Stand Up for Science rally at the State House in Providence. It’s part of a nationwide day of protest organized by early-career researchers in Washington, D.C. and other cities across the country.
In Rhode Island, the march was organized by graduate students such as Margaret Crane, a post-doctoral fellow at Brown University. Crane, 32, had applied for a federal research grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health. Her proposal – to look at how mental health organizations can improve their financial planning to “offer care more equitably” – had won high marks, she said and was slated for a final review two weeks ago. But then the review was canceled. And its status is uncertain.
Federal funding for programs related to health equity has been targeted for cuts by the Trump administration.
“It means my work is stalled,’’ Crane said, “and it’s not totally clear how my work is going to get funded.”
Crane, who stressed she is speaking out as an individual, not for Brown, said the experience motivated her to help organize the rally in Providence.
“One of the goals of the Stand Up For Science rally,’’ Crane said, “is to end censorship and political interference in science so that we can do good work that’s motivated by science and not by politics.’’
The uncertainty about research funding and jobs, students said, has created anxiety and fear on campuses.
“It’s terrifying,’’ said Maggie Bernish, 27, who is studying for her PhD at URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography. “Everyone is worried about their funding being cut.”
As president of URI’s graduate assistants’ union, Bernish said, she hears from a lot of worried graduate students. “I’ve had students come to us [sic] being like ‘My advisor told me they might not have funding for me. What do I do?’”
Bernish was working at her teaching assistant’s job at URI last Thursday morning when she saw an email from one of the employees who was being laid off. The email invited colleagues to join in an afternoon swim in Narragansett Bay – a cherished, year-round ritual among faculty and graduate students in the program.
“I just started crying,” Bernish said.
This story was reported by The Public’s Radio.
