8 Undergraduates Receive 2026 NOAA Hollings Scholarships

Khushi Desai is pursuing a B.S. in environmental science and policy and a minor in science, technology, ethics and policy. 

Desai worked this spring in the Maryland Department of Emergency Management’s Office of Resilience, where they conducted research on extreme heat and “managed retreat,” a strategy to proactively relocate people away from high-risk areas; analyzed other states’ policies to make recommendations for Maryland; built a dashboard for tracking the state’s progress toward Resilient Maryland Strategy goals; and researched and developed a proposed new funding model for the office. 

To gain more coastal experience—they completed a photo essay last winter on the relationship between oysters and humans in Choptank region—Desai hopes to complete a NOAA internship with its Office of Coastal Management. 

“I am excited to connect with professionals, learn about their experiences, and get advice on my journey,” they said.

Desai is co-president of the 17 for Peace and Justice student group. Desai collaborated on the recently launched CEDAR Gallery—a faculty and student-led environmental gallery that centers ecologies, diasporas and ancestral roots—and is a member of the University Honors and Federal Fellows programs.

Allison Fenley’s interest in atmospheric science was sparked while participating in Semester at Sea, a ship-based academic program that takes students to 10 countries around the world, from Europe to Africa to Southeast Asia. 

“I was experiencing so many different climates and environments in such a short period of time that I was struck by how different areas are impacted by climate change and environmental change,” Fenley said. She decided to major in atmospheric and oceanic science (AOSC) at Maryland. 

At UMD, Fenley works as an undergraduate research assistant with a student-run research group called Mesoterps. The team installs, maintains and analyzes data from nine weather stations across campus as part of the Micronet weather program. She’s also a member of UMD’s Epsilon Eta Environmental Science Professional Fraternity chapter, which organizes volunteer and professional development events to better care for the local environment. Next year, she will become the group’s executive director of programming.

Fenley hopes the Hollings Scholarship will serve as a springboard for her career, perhaps in developing sensors to detect atmospheric conditions.

“The Hollings Scholarship is really valuable because it will give me a wider lens of places and directions I could go with my career and future,” she said. “I’m excited to branch out and dip my toes into as many different corners of the field as I can.”

Growing up in Montgomery County, Donovan Fry sat on his porch watching winter blizzards and summer thunderstorms. These days, when his workload allows, he drives his car around the state chasing storms.

Fry, an atmospheric and oceanic science major, is enamored with the massive scale and significance of weather systems that can span thousands of miles, extend from the soil to the edge of outer space, and affect every person, organism and industry within their reach.

A Banneker/Key Scholar and in the University Honors program, he is involved with myriad weather-related activities at College Park. In 2025, he was a Climate Resilience Network intern with the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center. He helped to maintain and expand the Mesonet—a statewide network of weather sensors administered by the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science that collects data on rainfall, soil moisture, soil temperature and other meteorological conditions.

Fry also writes for UMD Weather, a student-run organization; he spearheaded the group’s coverage of the snowcrete storm in January. 

For the past two years, he has competed in WxChallenge, a 10-week collegiate weather-forecasting competition that involves predicting temperature, wind speed and precipitation for cities across the country. In the 2024-25 academic year, Fry won the award for the best freshman or sophomore in the competition and ranked 55th overall. This year, he was the top-performing undergraduate student and placed eighth overall. 

Fry envisions a career predicting meteorological conditions for public safety and industry at a private company or a government agency like the National Weather Service. The Hollings Scholarship will be vital to reaching that goal, he said. 

“I love forecasting—I do it all the time—but I still have tons to learn,” he said.

Working with AOSC Professor James Carton, atmospheric and oceanic science major Felix Gomez analyzes how sea surface temperatures in the Chesapeake Bay have changed over the past several decades. But Gomez's interest in the Chesapeake Bay goes beyond the data. He's drawn to the communities and ecosystems the bay sustains, and to how water temperature changes ripple outward into important questions that are biological, economic and deeply human. 

With his Hollings Scholarship, Gomez hopes to intern at NOAA's National Ocean Service or Chesapeake Bay Office, working aboard a research vessel at sea.

As a member of UMD's College Park Scholars’ Arts program, he’s currently designing and painting a 70-square-foot environmental mural for UMD's Terp to Terp campus donation program, using images of native plants and animals to make the case for more sustainable habits. He also teaches basic robotics and electrical engineering to K-12 students at the Aurora STEAM Lab in Columbia, Maryland, during his winter and summer breaks.

From his experiences in the lab and beyond, Gomez believes that science doesn't end when the data is collected—communicating findings and making them understandable and compelling to people outside the research is also part of the work.

"Effective environmental science must be paired with public-facing communication to inspire change," Gomez said.

When Jenna Strauch arrived at UMD in 2024 as a freshman mathematics major, she planned to become a math teacher. Then she met Professor Tim Canty through her Carillon Community, Weather and Climate. 

He introduced Strauch to Mesoterps, the student-led team behind UMD's Micronet, a distributed network of weather stations positioned across campus. The team collects hyperlocal atmospheric data and shares it with university facilities, emergency management offices and various campus partners. 

Working remotely with sensors and mini-computers helped her see that she could uniquely apply her math skills in a highly modern, technological context. And seeing how many people across campus were genuinely invested in what her team was doing only motivated her more. Now she’s pursuing a second bachelor’s degree in AOSC. 

"I've just learned so much since I started working with the Micronet—things that I never would have learned just from taking classes—and I know that it'll still be a big part of my academic life here at UMD for the next few years," Strauch said. "I think that experience is what got me here, and I'm excited to see where it all leads."

Even though her Hollings plans aren't yet finalized yet, she wants to work on projects involving marine ecosystems or coastal resilience.

"Hollings is such a goal to strive for in our field," said Strauch. "I honestly thought it was far-fetched that I'd even have a chance, but I feel so honored to be part of this program.”

Leila Vergara, an environmental science and policy major, was inspired to apply for a NOAA Hollings Scholarship for both personal and professional reasons. 

“I have seen firsthand how natural disasters devastate coastal cities, especially in underserved communities. My grandparents live in a Puerto Rican beach town, and it truly does not look the same, almost 10 years following Hurricane Maria,” she said. “I hope that the Hollings Program will give me the skills needed to interact with issues like these.” 

Vergara is a part of the Honors Global Challenges and Solutions Program and the Federal Fellows Program; is an ambassador for the Honors Ambassador’s program; and is a member of the Gamma Phi Beta Sorority, where she serves as the External Philanthropy Chair.

Since the spring, Vergara has been a sustainability research intern with the Washington, D.C.-based Apartment and Office Building Association’s Sustainability Office. 

Through her internship with NOAA, which she hopes will be with the National Ocean Service, Vergara hopes to explore what sustainability looks like for those living in coastal communities. After graduation, she hopes to work in a major city to better understand how sustainable practices are implemented, particularly in relation to walkability, public transportation systems, and energy-efficient design.

Growing up, Jenny Wang thought she would major in mathematics in college. A research internship with NOAA during her senior year of high school, learning to code for a project on inundation (the science of flooding), changed her path. 

Now a computer science major, she hopes to combine what she’s learned at UMD and her passion for the environment to expand our understanding of the world and how to protect it. 

“Receiving the Hollings scholarship feels like reaffirming my goals,” Wang said. 

In her first NOAA internship, she worked with the National Water Model, a hydrological simulation developed by the National Weather Service that models stream flow across the U.S., comparing the model’s flood predictions against real-world satellite data.

As a freshman at UMD, Wang took a weather and climate course taught by Department of Atmospheric & Oceanic Science Senior Faculty Specialist Jeff Henrikson that deepened her interest in the field. Last summer, through the First-Year Innovation & Research Experience (FIRE) program, Wang worked with Assistant Clinical Professor Sara Strey on a climate computing project examining Arctic ice and atmospheric rivers—massive streams of moisture that travel toward the poles, influencing global precipitation and sea level patterns. 

For her Hollings internship, Wang hopes to return to the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction located in UMD’s Discovery District—the same institution where her journey began in high school. 

Rohan Warrier, who’s pursuing a B.S. in economics with an interest in urban planning, knows that his academic area isn’t typical for a Hollings Scholar. 

“Being accepted is not only a great honor, it is also incredibly validating to know that my interests and career trajectory are real and appreciated by a body as impactful and relevant as NOAA,” he said.

He hopes to intern with a NOAA program in Washington state or Hawaii—with such different climate zones and geographies than in Maryland—focused on identifying environmentally sustainable practices that not only serve oceans and waterways, but also bolster developers’ bottom lines.

Since Spring 2025, Warrier has been a research assistant for the Options for Adapting to Rising Seas Project headed by Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics Professor Rebecca Epanchin-Niell. In that role, he has performed data analyses to help determine if coastal farmers facing sea level rise are accurately assessing the health of their land visually. 

Warrier also interned with the Maryland General Assembly last semester. He is part of the Honors College’s Student Advisory Council, the Honors Global Challenges and Solutions program, and a former member of the Global Communities Student Association.

Warrier plans to start an urban planning club this summer, through which members can learn about planning history, global approaches, and advocacy for local projects in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties.