Meredith McPherson, a Santa Cruz-based U.S. Geological Survey physical scientist at right, was researching reefs and coral decline when she was fired in February as part of recent federal layoffs. She stands with her family at a March 7 Stand Up for Science rally at the UC Santa Cruz Coastal Science Campus. (Mark DeGraff — Santa Cruz Local)

The other two employees were Meredith McPherson, a U.S. Geological Survey physical scientist who was mapping reefs, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Science Communications Specialist Jerimiah Oetting. All were probationary workers for less than one year who had fewer job protections. None of the three said they knew why they were singled out.

Wednesday, NOAA was told to lay off 1,029 workers, USA Today reported. Along with the roughly 1,300 people who resigned or were laid off in February, NOAA is expected to shed nearly 20% of its 12,000-person workforce. NOAA Fisheries employs about 40 people at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in Santa Cruz.  

Two federal courts ruled against the firings this week, but they are not the final decisions in the cases. The layoffs are part of an effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to slash federal spending, led by the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.

Anne Kapuscinski is a professor of environmental studies and director of the Coastal Science and Policy program at UCSC. Santa Cruz “is special nationally,” she said, because “it hosts university scientists, federal scientists, state scientists, and nonprofit scientists” that work together. 

Federal “agency scientists right now are doing some of the most important work that anyone is doing,” added Mark Carr, UCSC professor of marine ecology.

As part of a March 7 national day of protest, more than 150 people gathered outside the Seymour Marine Discovery Center on the Coastal Science Campus near Shaffer Road in Santa Cruz. They expressed concerns that reductions in the federal workforce would harm fisheries, water availability, and climate change adaptation in California.

UC Santa Cruz faculty, students, and supporters at the Stand Up for Science rally Friday at the UC Santa Cruz Coastal Science Campus. (George Colaco)

Saving reefs and beaches

McPherson, the USGS scientist, attended the protest with her family. She was working on the Coral Reef Project until the agency dismissed her on Feb. 14. Using satellite data and mapping software, she helped her research team better understand the relationship between storms, coral reef decline, and coastal flooding. 

McPherson was finishing up a report on how coral reefs near a park in Hawaii have changed over the past two decades. USGS contracted with the National Park Service to create it. McPherson, with her background in mapping, was leading the project. Now she is unsure if anyone will complete it. “Hopefully it will eventually get done, or it may not get done at all,” she said.

McPherson worked at the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center a few blocks from the UCSC Coastal Science Campus, near Natural Bridges Drive and Mission Street, and often collaborated with its researchers.

Sara Hutto was a NOAA Marine Sanctuaries employee based at the NOAA Fisheries office on the Coastal Science Campus until she was fired Feb. 27. A supervisor once called her the “most efficient and effective employee,” she said. Hutto was trying to improve efficiency in joint projects between NOAA and its nonprofit partners. 

“When you’re working with a federal entity, there’s a lot of admittedly bureaucratic stuff,” Hutto said. “I was researching and implementing more efficient workflows and internal and external communications. It was really about making our project run more efficiently.”

No one will likely take over the efficiency project, Hutto said. “We were already very short-staffed,” she said. “So many people wear so many different hats and are working on so many projects.”

Hutto was a contractor for NOAA from 2012 to October 2024 when she was offered a NOAA job. “Federal positions are really, really hard to come by,” Hutto said. “I worked for 13 years, and my supervisor wanted me as a Fed for those whole 13 years.”

Apart from the efficiency project, Hutto’s main job was to help California’s marine sanctuaries adapt to climate change. This entailed working with climate scientists to turn their research into management decisions.

An early project with NOAA Marine Sanctuaries highlighted many California beaches at risk of severe erosion, which led some county, city, state and national partners to improve beach monitoring and start developing plans to protect high-erosion areas.

Hutto said that no one will take her place to spearhead climate adaptation in California’s marine sanctuaries. “We don’t have anybody else on staff with that experience or capacity to take that up,” she said.

UCSC microbiology professor Karen Ottemann addresses a crowd of students, faculty and other supporters at a separate Stand Up for Science rally March 7 at UCSC. (Jesse Kathan — Santa Cruz Local)

‘Specific knowledge’

McPherson predicted that her team’s research will slow “substantially” without her. “Each person has very specific knowledge and expertise in a certain area,” she said. “With each person that is lost, it’s like a piece of the puzzle being tossed out.” 

McPherson added that she was one of a few divers on her team capable of deploying scientific instruments on reefs. 

Jerimiah Oetting, who started as a science communications specialist at NOAA Fisheries in August, was let go on Feb. 27. He also said his agency will not replace his expertise.

Oetting worked with scientists across the West Coast who managed salmon and steelhead, a type of trout with a similar life cycle. He communicated their research to fishers, lawmakers and the public — a job he said is important for increasing transparency.

Researchers create complex mathematical models to understand the salmon life cycle, he said. For one project, Oetting was helping contractors turn those esoteric equations into scientifically accurate animations of fish moving between rivers and the ocean.

He does not think anyone will continue his assignments. “There is nobody to do them,” he said. “There is one other comms person in California for NOAA Fisheries.”

‘The agency’s current needs’

Hutto and Oetting received termination emails that said the agency finds you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge, and or skills do not fit the agency’s current needs.” McPherson received a similarly worded email. All three disagreed.

“I had not even had an official performance review,” McPherson said. “There was no way for the agency to know what my performance actually was.”

Oetting reacted similarly. “It’s a flat-out falsehood,” he said. “I’ve received nothing but positive reviews for my work, including a recent performance evaluation and award.”

“Per long-standing practice, we are not discussing internal personnel and management matters,” said Andrea Wasilew, a NOAA Fisheries public affairs contractor, when asked for the reasoning behind workforce reductions in Santa Cruz. “NOAA remains dedicated to its mission, providing timely information, research, and resources that serve the American public and ensure our nation’s environmental and economic resilience,” she said.

Miel Corbett, western communications chief at USGS, said “we do not comment on personnel issues” when asked the same question. “The USGS remains committed to its Congressional mandate as the science arm of the Department of the Interior.”  

Lawsuits allege that the recent firings are illegal. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reinstated its recently fired probationary employees after a federal board ruled to delay their terminations for 45 days. 

Hutto and Oetting expressed concerns about the future of federal science. “These cuts are targeting the newest employees,” Oetting said. “So you are putting an expiration date on the expertise of these agencies.”

“The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector,” the U.S. Office of Personnel Management wrote in a statement about employee buyouts.

“We have decided to dedicate our lives to public service,” Hutto said in response to that statement. “That language was so incredibly demeaning, and I think to treat America’s public servants that way is just deplorable.”

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