On July 8, 2025, two dozen scientists gathered in the lobby of the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC for an unconventional science fair spotlighting research endangered by the Trump Administration’s budget cuts.
Harvard neurobiology professor David Corey was one of these scientists. Corey researches potential therapies for preventing childhood deafness, but recent budget cuts have brought his lab virtually to a standstill. “It’s just a really, really exciting time to be a researcher, and it’s therefore doubly frustrating when the government is trying to stop all this for no good reason,” Corey said.
Corey spoke of three main challenges that the current administration has been imposing on researchers at Harvard and other universities. The first was the freezing of Harvard’s federal grants, resulting in a hiring freeze that remains in effect. “I know, for instance, that the PhD program in our department used to take thirty students a year. Now we’ve been cut back to ten,” Corey noted, reflecting on how the cuts have affected his research.
The Trump administration also reduced NIH funding for indirect research costs, the money used to cover essential research facilities such as building maintenance, utilities, and administrative support. Additionally, the federal government has recently increased the endowment tax on universities, leaving schools like Harvard and Yale with fewer resources to fund their programs.
Despite the uncertainty in the scientific community, Corey remains optimistic. “Science will come back—just be patient and those opportunities will return.”