Baccarelli’s stated goal was to provide an update on the school’s financial crisis. Of Harvard’s schools, HSPH has been by far the most reliant on government grants—and so was the hardest hit by the Trump administration’s cuts to federal research funding. In the spring, essentially overnight, the school lost about $200 million in support. Although a federal judge has ruled that those grant terminations were illegal, the school’s future relationship with the federal government remains uncertain. Long-term survival for HSPH would require dramatic change, Baccarelli said at the town hall: It needed to become less dependent on federal funds. In the process, it would have to cut $30 million in operations costs by mid-2027 and potentially slash up to half of its scientific research. HSPH is one of the most consequential public-health institutions in America: The school once contributed to the eradication of smallpox and the development of the polio vaccine, led breakthroughs linking air pollution to lung and heart disease, and helped demonstrate the harms of trans fats. If the Trump administration’s aim has been to upend American science, HSPH is a prime example of what that looks like.


