Sustainability Fund Grants Total More Than $930K

When a towering oak topples in the yard after a thunderstorm, the carbon it absorbed for years from the environment goes right back into the atmosphere as it rots. 

But this fall, University of Maryland students will bury trees like these 15 feet deep, slowing decomposition and arresting the escape of greenhouse gases to help compensate for fossil fuel use. Team Wood Vault, under the guidance of atmospheric and oceanic science Professor Ning Zeng, who developed the concept, has been experimenting with sizes and depths of plots at UMD’s Paint Branch Turfgrass Research Facility. 

A new $20,700 grant from the university’s Sustainability Fund will enable the team to trial its largest vault yet, roughly the size of a large SUV. The team will collect fallen trees that would become waste wood, unable to be used for lumber or paper, from local municipalities and stash it underground. 

“We want to show that this system can be implemented in larger projects in the future,” said Duncan Santerre ’26, an atmospheric and oceanic science major who has been on the team for two years. Creating such “wood dumps” around the world, possibly in quarries or abandoned mines, could put away a billion or more metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, or nearly 3% of humanity’s total output.

Nearly a dozen students will help build and monitor sensor boxes to measure output of oxygen and methane, as well as temperature and humidity. They will also conduct a site analysis to better understand ideal conditions for successful carbon sequestration. Clay, for example, is important as a natural sealant that creates anaerobic conditions, said lab coordinator and physics Ph.D. student Christopher Zapata. 

Wood Vault is one of many student-led projects and internships that dominated the list of Sustainability Fund grants awarded earlier this year. More than $930,000 was distributed to 14 proposals across campus, for a total of $6.2 million since 2011. 

“There’s nothing like learning by doing,” said Office of Sustainability Director Scott Lupin, noting that the student focus is intentional because the fund comes from undergraduate fees. “We want to give students the opportunity to get out there and participate in research, internships and learn from faculty advisers or staff about topics that affect sustainability. Hopefully it’s rewarding and gives them a leg up in the job market.” 

Learn about the rest of the 2025-26 awardees:

The Office of Environmental Affairs will launch the Green Labs pilot, developing recycling programs for lab plastics and increasing outreach, training and prevention programs over the next three years. 

UMD Dining Services will pilot a three-year internship program offering hands-on agricultural and food systems experiences at UMD’s Terp Farm in Upper Marlboro while scaling up the supply of locally grown food for campus dining halls. 

Eight undergraduate interns will be hired to support tree inventory management, edible food gardening and conservation landscaping across campus over the next three years. 

This two-year project will implement and evaluate a biochar-biopolymer amended soil cover system, made of organic materials, installed along pavement edges near Lot 11 with the aim of reducing pollutants entering campus waterways from roadway runoff. 

Over the next two years, students will use drones and deep learning to identify inefficiencies in building envelopes—areas where heat, air or energy is escaping via walls, windows or the roof—and predict the energy, carbon and cost impacts of retrofit strategies, focused on the Benjamin Building. They will gain experience and skills in predictive AI, drone-based sensing, hygrothermal modeling and life-cycle assessment. 

Facilities Management’s Recycling and Solid Waste team will collect samples from four residence halls and four academic buildings to better understand campus waste contamination (such as trash in recycling containers or vice versa), strengthen data collection on waste streams, support improved waste-diversion planning and reduce waste hauling costs. 

Students will conduct a campuswide biodiversity inventory using environmental DNA sampling and bioacoustic monitoring to identify species present across campus and to map biodiversity hotspots. This will identify areas that need restoration and help guide future sustainability efforts on campus. 

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry will replace water-cooled condensers with air-cooled models in undergraduate organic chemistry labs to significantly reduce water use. Students in the labs will compare waste associated with each condenser while learning about green chemistry.

Window markers—small white dots to break up the transparency and reflection of glass—will be added to reduce bird collisions and fatalities. Lights Out UMD, created by Senior Lecturer Shannon Browne to monitor bird mortality, and UMD’s Audubon Society chapter will collect data on bird casualties before and after installation.

The Department of Transportation Services will install U-racks across campus to increase parking capacity for bikes and scooters. 

The Department of History’s environmental art gallery will develop programming, tools and community-building projects to help students navigate climate anxiety, learn about environmental storytelling and participate in art-focused climate action.

The garden bed on the south side of the Adele H. Stamp Student Union will be refreshed with herbs and medicinal plants. It will support pollinators, serve as an educational space and provide small quantities of herbs to the UMD Campus Pantry. 

Students will remove debris, introduce native plants and improve the outflow pattern of the rain garden, which will treat approximately 60,000 gallons of stormwater annually once restored. This supports UMD’s commitment to its status as a bird and bee campus by creating improved pollinator habitat while enhancing stormwater management.