Outside of the New Mexico State Capitol on Friday afternoon, dozens of New Mexicans gathered for a rally protesting the Trump Administration’s proposed (and realized) funding cuts to organizations including the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, with a specific focus on the cuts to scientific research funds.
One woman’s sign read, “Girls just wanna have FUN-ding for science.” Another attendees’ sign said: “America’s Pissed—No more mass firings.” A mother joins the fray with her two young sons holding signs that read “Science saved my life” and “science is for everyone.”
Across the nation, more than 100 other protests in the same grassroots movement—named Stand Up for Science—took place, many being students and scientists participating in walkouts from their respective campuses or workplaces.
One small group of students from The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro stood together at the Roundhouse with their homemade signs. Some of them have already been impacted by the research funding cuts.
One student named Mark, who declined to give his last name, tells SFR he researches hybrid AI models at his school and has worked on this research for nearly three months. Last week was the first time he had been paid for any of his work at the lab.
“The financial aid department in my school was fired because of these [executive] orders. Our school has not been able to allocate funds to researchers who need that money,” Mark explains. “I couldn't come to the lab. I had to get a job outside of campus to pay rent. I really cannot allocate time to my research if I'm not being paid because I, like many New Mexicans, don't come from a rich family. If the school can't help me then I can't do my research.”
The AI research Mark and his team conduct largely focuses on creating models that are cheap, efficient and can be carried around by the average American.
“We can't develop that, we cannot give that to New Mexicans, we cannot give that to the world if we don't pay a researcher. I'm working on an additional project about cybersecurity for the labs for Sandia and Los Alamos, and if they defund that, we may be very susceptible to attacks,” Mark says. “The general fear and depression amongst my peers and students—I'm totally feeling it. There is just a general malaise across the whole campus, and it really impacts our work.”
Another student from the same school named October, who also declined to give her last name, said while her metagenomics research into the effects of bacteriophages on the microbiome at the New Mexico VA hospital in Albuquerque has not yet been affected by funding cuts, they are “a lucky few.”
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Those leading the protests nationwide highlighted Stand Up for Science’s three policy goals: 1) to end censorship and political interference in science; 2) to secure and expand scientific funding; and 3) to defend diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in science.
Santa Fe’s protest was organized by researchers primarily from the University of New Mexico, including Kalina Fahey and Nina Christie, early career researchers at UNM’s Center on Alcohol, Substance use and Addictions (CASAA).
“I moved here almost two years ago to get advanced training in addiction science at CASAA, one of the top research centers in addiction science in the world, and in a state that is highly impacted by substance use,” Christie said to the crowd. “Ultimately, I moved here because I am a scientist, and today I'm standing here because there is an existential threat to science, there is an existential threat to the work that we do and there is an existential threat to public health.”
Christie described the “chaotic” past month for those working in scientific research, such as the mass firings of federal employees, censorship on terms scientists use in their work and the Trump administration’s continued cuts to diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
“Right now, we're seeing an executive branch that is hellbent on making sure that science does not include people that they don't like, and we're seeing huge cuts to agencies that support science,” Christie says. “We're saying no to that today.”
Sam McKenzie, neuroscientist specializing in memory and epilepsy who teaches at UNM, detailed for the protestors some of the budget cuts impacting UNM. According to McKenzie, UNM’s School of Medicine stands to lose nearly $9.6 million in funding from cuts to DEI programs from the National Institute of Health alone.
“The executive actions that were signed on January 20 were interpreted to mean that the diversity programs of the NIH were to end immediately. When we submit grants, they're reviewed by other scientists…We pick apart the logic of the value of this kind of work,” McKenzie said. “So what happens to the people who submitted those diversity grants? Only those students were removed. Can you imagine sitting in one of these review panels and reviewing just the ones from the rich white people?”
McKenzie listed some of the research projects that have ground to a halt as a result of the funding cuts and firings: one study attempting to figure out how to stop heart attacks caused by lung disease, another being the development of a vaccine that could help treat opioid overdoses.
“This is rigorous applied science with clear public health relevance,” McKenzie said.
One of McKenzie’s students, Brandi Hess, planned to work on research on concussions, but she says the withholding of NIH funding has resulted in her being unable to officially begin work at the lab, leaving her looking for alternate employment.
“I and many other students are left trying to pick up the pieces of our broken futures,” Hess said. “NIH funding is not just about science. It's about opportunity. These withholdings of NIH funds are not just hurting students, they are threatening major scientific progress. NIH funding drives biomedical research and helps real people.”
