HANOVER — For now, at least, research activities at Dartmouth College and Dartmouth Health officially continue as normal in spite of mixed messages from the Trump administration about the future of the federal grant programs that support much of the work.

Still, uncertainty surrounding the future of federal grants has led some Dartmouth researchers to opt not to submit new work for funding out of fears it may not be reviewed. Others face delays in receiving funding or have missed out on opportunities to hear from scientists employed by the National Institutes of Health who were not allowed to travel to a recent conference.

Dartmouth College receives substantial amounts of federal funding for research, leaving students and professors weary of how their research projects and laboratories will be impacted by several executive orders issued by President Donald Trump relating to federally sponsored research and contracts.

In 2023 alone, the College received $148 million in federal funding for research.

Provost David Kotz said that the College has “not made any changes at this point” to adapt to the new administration.

“Unless we receive a specific stop work order or other directive to change the way we are conducting any particular research project, at this time, given the information we have, we’re advising everyone to continue working as usual,” he said.  

On Monday, Jan. 27, the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget issued a memo announcing a freeze on federal loans and grants.

Although the administration subsequently rescinded the memo, it left room for “individual funding agencies” to issue “ ‘stop work’ orders on specific grants that they determine are in violation of executive orders,” and “choose to stop awarding new grants,” Jill Mortali, Dartmouth’s director of sponsored projects, wrote in an email to faculty on Jan. 29. 

On Monday in Washington, U.S. District Judge Loren Alikhan furthered the pause on President Trump’s decision to halt federal loans, grants, and other means of financial assistance, further clouding the Trump administration’s path forward.

Lebanon-based Dartmouth Health also is monitoring the situation. The Office of Research Operations has received communications from several federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Department of Labor, and expects to receive more information in the days and weeks to come, DH spokesperson Audra Burns said. 

“At this time, and until this matter is resolved by the courts, our research activities continue as usual,” she wrote.

Burns declined to make any Dartmouth Health researchers available for this story and did not respond to a request for the amount of money DH receives annually in federal grants.

Similarly, research continues at the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Environmental Laboratory where their “key mission and activities” have not been impacted, spokesperson Mary Edney wrote in an emailed statement. 

“We continue to work hard at our laboratories and offices in Hanover, New Hampshire, and Fairbanks, Alaska, and at fieldwork sites across the globe to solve some of the toughest challenges facing our nation and military in cold and complex regions,” she wrote. 

In spite of the institutional reassurances, the Trump administration’s actions have led to uncertainty in the research community.

Anna Tosteson, a professor and researcher at the Dartmouth Cancer Center, The Dartmouth Institute and Geisel School of Medicine, wrote in an email that she is “unaware” of “any specific grants connected to the “Geisel School of Medicine faculty or staff appointed within the Dartmouth Institute that are currently affected.” 

However, she expects that “pending applications for diversity supplements,” which are grant funds intended to support researchers who identify with an underrepresented group, will be unfunded or unreviewed due to “the intensive focus by the (Trump) administration on curtailing any activities related to diversity, equity or inclusion,” she added. 

As a result, Tosteson said the medical school and The Dartmouth Institute will be looking beyond federal agencies for funding as a “safeguard” against potential future disruptions. 

Assistant professor Katherine Nautiyal who is the principal investigator at Nautiyal Lab — a behavioral neuroscience lab located at the college’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences —  described, in an email statement, the current situation as “chaos” as the research community tries to “figure out what is cancelled and what is still proceeding.” 

​​Nautiyal wrote that her lab receives money from the NIH, specifically the National Institute for Mental Health. The funding goes toward experiments and covers the cost of research staff. 

“Any funding cuts to (the) NIH will be extremely detrimental to our ability to do the mental health research that is critical for the prevention and treatment of psychiatric disorders like depression and substance use disorders,” wrote Nautiyal. 

Moreover, she said that the NIH has also incurred internal consequences as well, writing: “For example, many of our intramural NIH colleagues (scientists who work at NIH) were not permitted to travel to attend an annual conference last week. They were unable to give their talks and present their research.”

Despite feeling “unsure,” Nautiyal decided to finish writing a grant to the NIH she had been working on for the last two months in the hopes that it will get peer reviewed later in the year. 

The same was not true for Geography associate professor Justin Mankin, who does research on climate variability. 

Though he said he has received “lots of” federal funding from agencies, such as the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, he recently opted not to apply for fresh funding.

When the funding freeze was first issued, it occurred during the time of a grant deadline for the NSF that Mankin had been working on for months. As a result, he decided to not submit his proposal, “owing to the ambiguity about whether or not that proposal would even be evaluated.” 

Although the College has advised faculty to continue working as usual, Mankin said the current administration’s actions are “a big upending of thinking of the U.S. government as a legitimate counterparty to contracts.”

He continued, “This is a major, major change in how we understand the role of government as a legitimate interlocutor and guarantor and counterparty in our ability to perform research that benefits the public interest.”

For climate change research especially, Mankin said he thinks “just like with the first Trump administration,” federally funded climate change research “is going to dry up to the extent that’s within the purview of Trump and the rest of the executive branch.” 

Elaine Sarazen is a senior honors thesis student at the Keller Lab Group working under the principal investigator, professor Klaus Keller. The lab conducts research centered on climate risk management. 

In addition to her lab work, Sarazen is working on a project for the Marine Energy Collegiate Competition administered through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory which she said is more “at risk” for her. Her project entails building a water turbine that will be mounted on dock pilings in order to generate energy from tidal currents. 

As a part of the competition, over the course of a year, her project team gets $20,000 in funding, and while they’ve received their first “chunk” already, Sarazen received an email last week from the competition stating that “due to the administration change, the funding is delayed, and they’re not sure what’s going to happen,” she said. 

“We don’t know if the competition is going to happen anymore and if we’re going to get the money to finish the competition and build our device,” Sarazen added.

Adriana James-Rodil can be reached at ajamesrodil@gmail.com.