Towson University continues summer research programs despite federal funding cuts

By Lacee Griffith

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    TOWSON, Maryland (WBAL) — Towson University is working to keep research programs moving forward despite federal funding cuts.

About 150 students are getting hands-on experience this summer that they plan to take with them into their careers. Wearing white lab coats, gloves and goggles, Towson students are hard at work, even during the summer, investing in themselves and their education.

“There was some disappointment associated with the cancellation of some federal funding,” said Christopher Salice, TU’s associate dean for research and faculty success. “But this kind of gave us the opportunity to kind of think critically about what it is we want to achieve with students and research.”

In May, the University System of Maryland Board of Regents instituted $15.2 million in cuts from Towson’s fiscal year 2026 budget due to systemwide reductions. Despite this challenge, the university found a way to support undergraduate research over the summer.

“We try to give the students authentic research opportunities so that they can go out and make important impacts in the next phases of their career, as well as actually creating data that can have an impact on human health,” said Erin Harberts, an assistant biology professor at TU.

The continuing research focuses on making allergy shots more effective, but the students will take their gloves off and step outside the lab as well by catching crayfish.

“We want to be able to inform conservation efforts in Maryland. We want to essentially determine how salt concentrations, like rising salt concentration in Maryland’s freshwater ecosystems, are driving the invasiveness of these crayfish that we’re finding today,” said Faith Matthews, a TU junior.

The research relates to Maryland’s freshwater systems under threat with increasing salinity levels due to historic and ongoing road deicing salts. As the students learn, they grow as a team.

“I get to bond with everyone, and also, I get to participate with students, and I think (an) experience that is, like, real-time exchange of knowledge and experience and excitement about what we are doing and why we are doing is absolutely essential part of the research,” said Krista Kraskura, an assistant biology professor at TU.

These teachers and students said what they are doing at Towson is necessary.

“Without research, there’s not really progress and there’s not really development. So, scientific research at this level is very important for any kind of progress, especially the progress we need now, like climate change and, of course, road salts and everything that (is) segregating our environment today,” Matthews told 11 News.

Some of the other research project topics across campus include preventing hackers from stealing information, detecting asthma using artificial intelligence, mitigating cyberthreats and understanding sand on Mars.

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