AMHERST — Graduate student Josie Pilchik’s career plans dissolved with just one email.

As a UMass PhD student in the U.S. Geological Survey’s S.O. Conte Anadromous Fish Research Laboratory in Turner Falls, Pilchik had spent the better part of two years researching the resilience of brook trout under Massachusetts’ warming conditions. A year into her PhD research at the Conte Lab, she joined the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center’s fellowship program, opening up a wider network of scientists and natural resource professionals who would use her research to inform policy and conservation.

Like a fish egg hatching, Pilchik’s career in ecological research and climate adaptation had emerged.

Until one Monday in February, when she opened her email inbox and saw a “stop work order” staring back at her.

“That was really chaotic,” Pilchik said. “They sent out the stop work order at 3 p.m. on a Monday, so I had to run home, download all of my data off of my work laptop they gave me, and then bring it back the next day so that I could still keep working on my degree.”

Pilchik’s scramble, unfortunately, is not unique. For the last five months, hundreds of master’s students, PhD candidates and post-doctorate researchers across the country have faced funding cuts, lost positions and uncertain futures as the Trump administration butchers federal research funding, which many say is the backbone of science in the United States.

“They fired a lot of competent scientists,” said James Garner, a recent PhD graduate from UMass who lost a post-doctorate position in the Conte Lab after the Trump administration canceled his funding. “Then they cut off our heads by dismantling these funding structures, effectively cutting off future career prospects, both in the federal workforce and in academia because these federal funding structures are what funds science at all levels within our country.”

More recently, the Trump administration has set its sights on the Ecosystems Mission Area — the $293 million research arm of the USGS that studies nearly every biological and ecological resource in the country. Policymakers, resource managers and other scientists draw on the data and information generated from the sector’s research to make educated decisions on the United States’ natural assets.

Many of the programs also train the next generation of climate and ecological scientists.

Dismantling the EMA was a specific goal outlined in the policy checklist of Project 2025, authored by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Project 2025 aims to restructure the federal government’s executive power under a right-wing ideology, including limiting federal-funded research that does not align with topics of conservative values. In the proposed budget for fiscal year 2026, the White House is proposing to slash the EMA’s budget to $29 million, just 10% of fiscal year 2025’s total.

These cuts trickle down to UMass, since the university houses the Massachusetts Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, one of the EMA’s 43 collaborate units, and the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center (NECASC), one of nine regional hubs for climate adaptation science.

Both research groups connect scientists and scientists-in-training to industry professionals to fill information gaps in movement of invasive species, management of water and forest resources, protection of coastal communities and much more. Potential cuts to NECASC’s funding threaten 20 ongoing projects throughout the New England region, 14 fellows and seven post-doctorate researchers and UMass staff members.

The Conte Lab, which receives a majority of its funding from the EMA, remains affiliated with the university, sending its graduate students and PhD candidates to fill research positions.

With the White House’s proposed budget looming over their heads, early career scientists at UMass are watching their dream jobs disappear, struggling to work under a severe morale drop and fighting to prevent the science they love — and the environments they seek to protect — from crumbling before their eyes.

“The biggest climate scientists in the world all agree that we have to do the work now to stay within our temperature goals for the next several decades,” Pilchik said. “It’s scary to think about it taking several years beyond this point to get it back to even some semblance of normal, and then to be able to start doing the work again.”

Shrinking opportunities

Garner chose April 11, 2025 to defend his dissertation because it aligned with the start date of his post-doctorate position at the Conte Lab. At the facility, he’d apply his research on environmental DNA detection to improve passages in dams known as fish ladders. But before he even got to his dissertation date, he learned that the lab could no longer access his funding.

“It’s literally wasting hundreds of millions of dollars that have already been allocated to do work like understanding fish passage or climate change adaptation measures,” Garner said. “Projects are left unfinished, data is lost, collaborations are broken, and these critical questions that ensure the safety and sustainability of our society go unanswered.”

His research and six to seven projects undertaken during his PhD should have sent employers swimming toward Garner. Instead, the federal government’s hiring freeze and grant cancellations dried up these opportunities. He managed to secure a temporary visiting professor job at Mount Holyoke College this fall, and will have to turn to nonprofits or start-up companies to fund his research work.

“I am now trying to strategize how to continue doing research,” Garner said, “but not drawing on federal funds anymore, which has been like the biggest pool of money that existed and becomes more accessible after you have that doctorate. Now I finally got the doctorate, but I don’t have access to it anymore.”

Pilchik also worries about the lack of job opportunities in her field. With the uncertainty of her funding and the constant stress of firings and rehirings, she decided to master out of her PhD program and compete in the job market rather than fight for funding with the rest of UMass’ PhD candidates. She feels “burned by the federal government” and plans to avoid federal science jobs in the near future.

“We’ve heard the famous quote by Russell Vought about how they are intentionally attempting to traumatize federal workers,” Garner said. “They succeeded in traumatizing us, so many of my friends and colleagues, mentors, mentees feel broken, fearful, unable to do the jobs they were trained and hired to do.”

Believing in scientists

Thomas Nuhfer, a PhD candidate at UMass, often works from home to avoid the low morale in his lab. He, like Pilchik, is a fellow with the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center researching the geographical shifts of native plants as rainfall and temperature changes.

As part of Northeast Regional Invasive Species and Climate Change (RISCC) Network, Nuhfer also helps identify potential invasive species and relays this information to around 990 land managers and natural resource practitioners from Maine to Virginia.

“Even if we were to sort of snap our fingers and cut emissions to zero today, the gears are already turning,” Nuhfer said. “Regardless of what happens on the mitigation side, for our landscapes to keep working for themselves and for us, we need to be informed by scientific knowledge and practice to shift the ways that we interact with ecosystems and account for the ways that they’re changing.”

Nuhfer has three years of his PhD left, and the Trump administration’s impending cuts could place the burden of finding funding on his shoulders. This money, he explained, not only supports his work, but it’s also income and health insurance he needs to support his family. If NECASC employees receive a stop work order overnight, Nuhfer could draw on some funding from his advisor and his fall teaching assistant job, but that’s only a temporary solution.

“It’s a tricky time with so many people losing their funding,” Nuhfer said. “Right now at UMass, there are not enough TA [teaching assistant] positions for all of the graduate students who are or might be losing their funding, and the landscape for external fellowships is really dire.”

The federal government pulling financial support for climate adaptation research may add more difficulties to the research, but the value of the science or its impact motivates scientists to continue their work. Even with their job stability in doubt, Nuhfer and Pilchik collect data, communicate with their network of researchers and make headway on their degrees.

They aren’t alone — more than 70 scientific societies and universities signed a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum pleading to maintain the Ecosystems Mission Area program. Studying climate resilience requires resilience, and that’s perhaps the scientific community’s greatest asset against the chaos.

“We’re still pushing forward and doing the science, and so it has been really empowering to see so many people fighting for science,” Pilchik said. “I’ve definitely lost a lot of faith in our government, but I’ve gained a lot of faith in scientists, and the work that we do and how dedicated we are to it.”