A University of Hawaii program that helped to attract and develop women for careers in geosciences is the latest local casualty of the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to reduce federal spending in education.
The Trump administration’s order to cut federal funding to grants and programs, including those from the National Science Foundation, forced a review and suspension of programs inconsistent with the president’s initial executive orders.
“(The School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology) is Hawaii’s largest producer of geoscience graduates—alumni who go on to monitor volcanic hazards, predict extreme weather, conduct assessments of environmental impacts, ensure sustainable use of Hawaii’s freshwater resources and more,” said Barbara Bruno, whose position as project lead for the Catalyst Awards for Science Advancement mini-grant program was terminated in April. “I think the biggest impact of this termination is the loss of professional development opportunities for women. STEM is hemorrhaging women; we need programs to keep them.”
CASA funded geoscience workforce development via outreach and community engagement to attract new STEM professionals and professional development for current SOEST students and early-career scientists in the field. Through mini-grants, the program funded female students, post-doctoral researchers, staff and faculty to attend professional meetings and technical or career development workshops or engage in field work or research collaborations.
Bruno, a faculty member at SOEST’s Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, was instructed to immediately shut down the program. The termination left about two-thirds of the program’s $200,000 budget unused. It also cancelled two months of Bruno’s salary and several mini-grants that were being processed.
The cuts are expected to have a significant impact not only on the recruitment and retention of young geoscience professionals but also new and emerging research of particular relevance to the Pacific region. For example, funding was pulled from a Palauan graduate student who is pursuing a doctoral degree in the Marine Biology Graduate Program and studying the unique and diverse coral communities of Ngermid Bay in the Republic of Palau.
Funding was also cut for outreach and community engagement initiatives, including training for middle school teachers in ocean engineering and workshops, hands-on activities, and presentations to community members and middle and high school students that focused on deep-sea ecology and volcanoes.
“We were also actively soliciting applications for the next round of CASA funding when we received the termination notice,” Bruno said. “Ending this grant eliminates the support for future professional development opportunities and K–12 and community engagement.”
In May, state Attorney General Anne Lopez joined 14 other attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to stop the administration from cutting critical NSF programs and funding. Bruno submitted a declaration in support of the federal suit, attesting to the adverse impacts of the sudden termination of her NSF grant. She is pursuing alternative funding to support these initiatives.
Michael Tsai covers local and state politics for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at michael.tsai@charter.com.