Katharyn Boyer, interim EOS executive director and professor of biology, poses for a photo inside her lab at San Francisco State’s Estuary and Ocean Science Center in Tiburon on April 23, 2025. (Gina Castro/KQED)

This story was originally published by KQED.

A coalition of advocates and loyal supporters has staved off the closure of a unique marine research center on the San Francisco Bay—at least for another six months.

San Francisco State University first announced earlier this year that it could no longer afford the Estuary and Ocean Science Center on its 53-acre Romberg Tiburon Campus. Although scientists, conservationists and community members jumped into action and raised millions of dollars, their fundraising effort appeared to fail.

In early May, the university signaled that it would likely shutter the campus. But the university told KQED this week that it is exploring a new financial option to keep the bayside research center afloat.

“We are in conversation with [a] foundation,” said Amy Sueyoshi, SF State’s provost and vice president of academic affairs. “It looks hopeful that it could both cover ongoing expenses and maybe take on Romberg Tiburon in the future. And so we want to explore that relationship in the coming months.”

Due to dropping enrollment and new reductions to state university funding, SF State faces a budget shortfall of approximately $25 million. Without this new financial assistance, SF State would phase out operations at the marine research center—a regional science hub where researchers restore eelgrass, monitor water quality, rehabilitate endangered fish, implement sea-level rise adaptation projects and more.

Oyster shells collected and bagged are used for a living shorelines project at San Francisco State’s Estuary and Ocean Science Center, in Tiburon on April 23, 2025. (Courtesy of KQED)

The deal is far from locked down. The parties have not agreed yet on how much funding the foundation might contribute in the interim while SF State looks for a new owner for the campus, Sueyoshi explained. The university would not share the name of the foundation yet. SF State will decide the center’s ultimate future by January 2026.

“There’s going to be a group of folks from the foundation as well as from the university meeting through the fall semester,” Sueyoshi said. “We’ve set a January deadline for us to come to a decision.”

The center has been an invaluable resource for SF State scientists and graduate students for years. The university began research at the bayside property, once a U.S. Navy base, in 1978.

The site also hosts the San Francisco Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center.

One person in particular refused to let the center fold. This spring, Katharyn Boyer, the center’s interim executive director, scrambled to convince donors to pledge money. By April 30—an internal deadline from SF State—Boyer said she had raised about $3.2 million. But it was not enough to convince the university’s leadership to keep the doors open. They had hoped for $10 million.

Boyer, who would have had to move her research to SF State’s main campus if the Tiburon campus closed, declined to comment on negotiations with the foundation.

Many others have advocated for the center to stay open. Rebecca Schwartz Lesberg, the president of consulting firm Coastal Policy Solutions, organized a coalition of statewide stakeholders called Friends of the Estuary and Ocean Science Center. They reached out to their representatives and the university.

SF State appears to be working hard to explore this new alternative. The university plans to share more details about the potential donor at a fall budget meeting.

“Estuary and ocean science is valuable, and we need to be thinking seriously about the climate,” Sueyoshi said. “We’re just not set up in the kind of business model where we can continue to subsidize Romberg Tiburon as a second location.”