WILLIAMSBURG — Dozens of protesters gathered near the William & Mary campus on Friday as part of the Stand up for Science movement, which mobilized dozens of demonstrations across the country.

As cars slowed at the intersection of Jamestown Road, Richmond Road and North Boundary Street and passing drivers honked in support, demonstrators chanted “Fund facts not felons,” “No science, no beer,” “Progress over profits,” and “Fund science, save lives.”

Rowan Lockwood, a geology professor at William & Mary, said he attended after hearing about the demonstration from a student.

“I have watched as my students, alumni, peers and colleagues have been fired, as my science and other sciences have been censored, and I’ve watched as my funding has been slashed,” Lockwood said. “It’s time for us to stand up and say something about that.”

Lockwood described how colleagues from the National Park Service, the National Forest Service and the National Institute of Health had all lost funding, with further budget cuts, such as to the National Science Foundation, expected on the horizon.

Professor John Swaddle, the faculty director of the Institute for Integrative Conservation at W&M, spoke of an announcement made by the NIH on March 4.

“In addition to specific grants being cut, they’re talking about cutting what’s called ‘the overhead,’” Swaddle explained. “The overhead pays just for the university to function. It supports HR, finance, custodial services, keeping the lights on. That enormously affects every student at those universities.”

“Already, many big research universities — including William & Mary — are no longer admitting graduate students, because they can’t afford to have graduate students,” he added. “And without ‘the overhead,’ universities are at risk of closure. Closing whole units, whole departments — maybe even closing the whole institution.”

Meimei Mon, a sophomore at W&M, said she recently lost an environmental consulting internship because of the budget cuts.

“I’ve had this internship for the past two summers,” Mon said. “It’s funded federally, and since the funding has been cut the entire department that I work for is no longer funded at all. I was supposed to come back, and now it’s completely evaporated. It’s a struggle trying to find other jobs.”

Williamsburg resident Susan Woodward described how federal funding cuts affected her daughter, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

“Her professors and her research associates are getting cease and desist letters, their grants are being stopped, and the research studies that have taken years and years to compile — some that are even still in process — are wiped,” Woodward said. “All the data she’s worked on is gone. She’s very upset. I want her to know I’m advocating for her.”

Mac Johnson, a W&M biology major, said that early career scientists are often taught that they’re not supposed to be political.

“We’re taught that our only job is to present the facts to the people in charge and let them make the decisions, because it can be risky,” Johnson said. “It’s damaging to your career, and it can be damaging to your credibility to get really political.

“But a lot of us are starting to feel like our careers are at stake either way.”