Beyond the funding cuts affecting the FIRST program, the cuts to NSF and NIH have impacted research throughout Emory and other universities. The cuts have largely been aimed to stop or slow research in specific areas of study.
“There are two things that have happened [that impact people],” Dr. Corbett said. “One is the termination of actual grants that don’t align with current federal directives, like anything related to climate change, vaccines, diversity and anything having to do with [the LGBTQ+ community]. So any [research] in those spaces [have been limited]. There’s also that fact that there hasn’t been any congressionally approved budget, which has really limited the overall budgets for both NIH and NSF because they don’t know what their budget is going to be, so they’re very cautious in how much they’re willing to spend.”
Though the national budget is uncertain and funding has been harder to come by, Dr. Corbett said that those working at the college have done their best to find money where they can to support researchers.
“These [cuts] have changed my job because I have to [put more focus] on finding ways to financially support faculty, and also be a cheerleader and help them to be creative and find other opportunities,” Dr. Corbett said.
Dr. Corbett said that she in particular is in an important position because she is both a scientist and in a leadership role at the college level.
“[The current political climate] has put me in a position to [give] even more support to faculty particularly in STEM,” Dr. Corbett said. “And as a scientist with a leadership position, I’m really the only scientist educating my colleagues about what it means for these types of grants to be terminated and what that means for people’s research programs.”
Amid the current political climate, Dr. Corbett said it is particularly important to continue moving forward in the research space, despite the larger implications of what these cuts mean for the world as a whole.
“There are so many long-term implications of what is happening now and even [if things were] to turn around by the mid-term election, which is still a year away,” Dr. Corbett said. “The changes that have already been made are not things that you can just snap your fingers and go back to. Even if we do get a change in government that allows these [research programs] to start up again, it could really set the U.S. back in terms of research.”
She said that the funding cuts are going to set the United States back from being a hub of scientific innovation. Additionally, they will impact how future generations view science moving forward, which has more serious consequences.
“The problem is the impact on training future generations of scientists,” Dr. Corbett said. “We were the destination. People across the world wanted to come to the U.S. to train in biomedical science. And the combination of [funding cuts, program termination and immigration policy changes] is changing that. People aren’t going to want to come here anymore. We’re not going to have as many people that we can train because of [lack of] resources.”
Corbett said that having that diverse biomedical workforce was critically important to tackle the most challenging problems and now that’s being destroyed. And areas of research that were celebrated under previous administrations like diversity are not being celebrated anymore.
“When we take out a whole generation of people seeing science as something good, something worth striving for and [something] that would be interesting to be involved in, that can have long term implications,” Dr. Corbett said. “Not just [implications] for the U.S.’s standing in these spaces, but also the ability to really make major discoveries that could impact the health and well-being of not just people in the U.S. but across the whole world.”
Dr. Zoe Diaz-Martin, a professor at Spelman, said that the cuts have significantly slowed down her research. She said the lack of federal funding will impact scientific discovery going forward, which will set back the healthcare industry.
“It’s been a difficult landscape to navigate,” Dr. Diaz-Martin said. “These funding cuts also go beyond just scientists’ ability to conduct their research. I work with a lot of different students and something I do with them is work to find programs that give them hands-on training in the sciences. And these types of research experiences are really fundamental in developing important skills that enable students to be good at their jobs in the future. A lot of the students I work with are interested in being doctors. So these research opportunities train our future doctors in really important skills like problem-solving and critical thinking. These are skills we want our healthcare providers to have. But unfortunately, these funding cuts are reducing the number of programs that are available.”
Dr. Joanna Wardwell-Ozgo is a professor at Kennesaw State. She said scientists need to do better at advocating for the importance of their work and talk to people about their research. She frequently writes to her representatives and encourages others to do the same. Additionally, she takes part in different advocacy organizations and marches in protest with organizations like Stand Up for Science.
“We have to start working really hard to get public help and advocate for ourselves,” Dr. Wardwell-Ozgo said. “We need the general population to get excited about science and think that it’s important and deserves funding.”
Both Dr. Diaz-Martin and Dr. Wardwell-Ozgo want people to understand that these cuts will impact more than just science because by setting back research, the cuts are impacting the future population’s well-being.
“Sometimes the sciences, for whatever reason, can feel so far apart from everyone’s everyday lives when in reality science and technology are really fundamental to everything we do,” Dr. Diaz-Martin said. “It’s because of investments by our government that we’ve been able to make so many important developments in how we live our day-to-day lives.”
Dr. Wardwell-Ozgo said the cuts have also directly affected her work and what she is able to do. She submitted a grant in May 2024 and it took over a year for her funding to get approved.
“That was emotionally gutting because I didn’t really know what was happening,” Dr. Wardwell-Ozgo said. “I had to go back and forth with NIH and take out any mention of diversity. I had to completely remove and scrub that language from my grant. Once I did that, my grant was funded. It was a very long and emotional process that felt like I was being strung along. And I was really unsure what to expect.”
Dr. Corbett said similar situations have occurred at Emory, which has made it harder to do research and hire new people.
“I fear [funding cuts] are going to create an environment where it’s just so challenging to be successful that it may kill some people’s research programs, that are really, really important research,” Dr. Corbett said.
Dr. Corbett said that through this hard time, you can see the resilience of the scientific community. And the determination of scientists to keep doing what they’re doing because they know it’s the right thing to do so they are creative and find ways to persevere.
“[Scientists] know their work is important and they’re committed to keep doing it,” Dr. Corbett said. “So there’s this kind of yin and yang on any given day because somebody can be really down because they’re thinking about the reality of this situation. And then on that same day, they have a conversation with a colleague about an exciting result or a student who is doing really well. And that keeps us going and moving forward.”