The impact of the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to research and education funding in Maryland will be the subject of a town hall meeting on Saturday, Sept. 20, from 1 to 2 p.m., at the SNF Parkway Theatre, 5 W. North Ave. in Baltimore.
Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman and Baltimore City Council member Phylicia Porter are expected to join hundreds of scientists and researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Johns Hopkins Medicine and the University of Maryland (UMD) to discuss proposed federal cuts to research and education funding for Fiscal 2026.
Alsobrooks and Lierman will be part of a panel along with Anna Emenheiser, a Biophysics PhD candidate at the UMD; Caitlin Corona, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute on Aging; and Jaime Eugenin von Bernhardi, a postdoctoral fellow at Hopkins. UMD School of Public Health researcher and instructor Ariel Balaban will be the moderator.
In 2024, Maryland received $2.43 billion in NIH funding, creating $5.43 billion in economic activity and more than 22,000 jobs in the state. The president’s proposed 2026 federal budget contains a 43 percent cut to the NIH, a 57 percent cut to the National Science Foundation, a 14 percent cut to the Department of Energy Office of Science, and major reductions across other research agencies and higher education funding. Researchers say these cuts would have significant impacts on medical breakthroughs, research and development, clean technology advances and more.
A key organizer of the town hall is the UAW, a labor union that represents scientists and researchers affected by the federal budget cuts. Its membership includes NIH Fellows United/UAW Local 2750, the first union of its kind in the U.S. federal government, and Hopkins PRO-UAW, a union of postdoctoral researchers at Johns Hopkins. The UAW is also working to secure collective bargaining rights for graduate workers at the University of Maryland. Through collective action, these members are seeking to improve working conditions and pay and prevent cuts that threaten to dismantle America’s leadership role in life-saving research.
“We’re grateful for the chance to discuss the impacts these cuts are having with Senator Alsobrooks and Comptroller Lierman, and applaud their commitment to protecting funding for research and education,” Balaban said in a statement. “We will be sharing our perspective as researchers on the frontline, asking questions about the additional cuts in the President’s proposed budget, and raising the alarm about the scientific and economic challenges these cuts are having in our state.”
