Samantha Herman is geeked about cyborgs — about the way technology and human bodies can integrate. The second-year doctoral student at UCLA’s Anatomics Lab is part of a research team that’s working on bionic technology to prevent unnecessary amputations.
Traditional joint replacements, Herman explained, tend to loosen and fall out. Then, “people will get these really nasty surgeries that limit their range of motion and lead to a decreased quality of life.”
"The joint replacement that we're building [at UCLA] bends like a spring to move," they added excitedly. "And because it does that, there's no wear and tear." The implants, they explained, could last forever.
This is exactly the type of work Herman set out to do when they joined the lab. “I wanted to do work that matters, that would help people,” they told LAist.
Last summer, that work suddenly came to a halt when the Trump administration froze hundreds of federal research grants that had already been allocated to UCLA, accusing the school of tolerating antisemitism as a justification.
That experience has led Herman and other researchers to lobby the state to make its universities less susceptible to national politics.
Responding to federal cuts
When the freeze began, Herman was called to a meeting led by Tyler Clites, an assistant professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering.
“I think that we can weather this for three months,” Clites said at the meeting. “But after that, I might have to start letting people go."
The worst-case scenario Clites feared did not come to pass. By late September, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation — the two largest federal funders of research at U.S. universities — were forced to restore some 800 grants at UCLA in response to federal court orders.
Still, the temporary freeze was long enough to cause permanent damage to some research teams. Plus, students and professors fear that budget reductions at the NIH and NSF may threaten their research capabilities and professional futures.
And so, at the start of 2026, Herman — along with researchers across the UC system, Caltech, Stanford and USC — journeyed to Sacramento to host a science fair. The effort was inspired by the success of similar science fairs hosted at UCLA, back when the researchers’ funding had not yet been restored.
At a building on K Street, Herman and their colleagues vividly described their work to lawmakers and congressional staff.
Their hope is to garner support for SB 895, a bipartisan bill that aims to create the California Foundation for Science and Health Research. The foundation would be tasked with awarding grants and making loans to public and private universities, as well as research companies, institutes and health care organizations engaged in scientific research and development.
The foundation would be funded by a $23 billion bond, which would need to be approved by state voters.
The deadline to get measures on the ballot is typically at the end of June. “And when it comes to bonds, that's always a deliberative process involving the governor and the leadership of the Senate and Assembly,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener, one of the bill’s authors.
“We're not guaranteed to get this on the ballot,” he said at a January press conference. “I want to be clear: It's going to take a lot of hard work and advocacy and organizing.”
Why this bill matters to researchers
Isaac Aguilar, a second-year doctoral student at Caltech’s division of geological and planetary sciences, also participated in the science fair in Sacramento. His current project focuses on the environmental impacts of ash contamination from the 2025 Eaton Fire.
After a fire, potentially hazardous materials in the form of ash can find their way into “our soils, our playgrounds, our schools and our backyards,” he said.
Though Aguilar’s work was not affected by last summer’s temporary freeze, he wants lawmakers and the public to understand that “[our] ongoing monitoring and efforts to remediate some of our polluted cities require a stable source of funding.”
In his view, the proposed bill is key to establishing “continued support to operate these instruments, to run our samples and to be able to track how these contaminants behave in the environment.”
Herman agreed.
“To go from an idea to an implant that can be in a person is [a process] on the order of a decade,” they said. “We can't deal with the volatility of four-year election cycles. It just isn't possible to do this kind of research in that environment.”
Wiener added: “We are at risk in this country of a scientific brain drain because the Neanderthals who are running the country don't believe in science."
He views the bill as an opportunity for California “to really step up [and] help preserve [scientific] leadership” in the U.S.
When asked about the possibility that federal research conditions might be restored under a different administration, Wiener added: “My concern is that even as we try to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, there's going to be a lack of confidence. ... You know, are we going to have to have this disaster, or risk of disaster, every four years?”
“I think it's important for California to be like a rock in the storm,” he added. “So that we're just ... creating scientific advances [here] year in and year out, regardless of what's happening with the federal government.”
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The projected ROI for Californians
Wiener and the bill’s other proponents also underscore that the bill is intended to let California share revenue off the licensing and royalty fees from inventions and technologies produced by the bond-funded research.
That means fees “for every drug and treatment created will be sent to California's general fund. So, a direct benefit to California taxpayers,” Wiener said. At the press conference, he also promised that pharmaceuticals developed through this research will be made available to Californians at a discount.
Elle Rathbun, a neuroscience doctoral student at UCLA who’s researching potential treatments to repair the brain after stroke, said she’s “in total support” of the bill. But, she added, this funding “should be additive, instead of a replacement.”
The NIH, NSF and other federal institutions have a responsibility to all U.S. taxpayers, Rathbun said, and that should not be relinquished.
Disclosure: Julia Barajas is a part-time graduate student at the UCLA law school.
