Federal funding freeze leaves grad students, postdocs scrambling for labs, support

First-year Ph.D. students at the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences studying in Harvard Medical School’s Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program are facing an unprecedented challenge as they begin a process that will soon lead to one of the most consequential decisions in their careers: finding the right lab and mentor for their research.

“I’m supposed to be choosing labs, but all of the labs I’m talking to and rotating in, they have no idea what the funding situation is, if they can take students, if they have money for our salaries or the projects we want to do,” said Jason Biundo, a first-year doctoral student. “It feels disappointing.”

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