Decarbonization Academy
The Decarbonization Academy provides an immersive sustainability learning experience for students who are interested in working towards UVA’s goals of being carbon-neutral by 2030 and fossil fuel free by 2050.
UVA’s summer Decarbonization Academy is a paid, summer hands-on learning experience drawing together students, faculty, and staff to work towards UVA’s sustainability goals, most notably, achieving carbon-neutrality by 2030; as well as becoming fossil fuel-free by 2050.
UVA’s Decarbonization Academy is designed as a Grounds-engaged learning experience. This includes engagement with faculty and staff through two signature components. Student fellows participate in multidisciplinary, group-based learning activities such as faculty lectures, site visits, and field work. Students also co-create and complete a hands-on decarbonization project with a faculty or staff mentor that directly addresses UVA’s impact. In recognition of the program’s collaborative and innovative approach, the Decarbonization Academy received a 2026 Second Nature Climate Luminary Honors award.
The program is open to undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in any UVA program. Student decarbonization fellows commit to 40 hours of work per week over the 8-week summer academy and receive a stipend, paid bi-weekly.
For questions, please contact Ethan Heil with UVA’s Office for Sustainability ([email protected]).
Project descriptions
- A. Forest Patches and Nature-Based Strategies
Led by Tim Beatley, Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning (up to 3 students).
The 2026 decarbonization fellows will continue the work of previous forest patches teams with a focus on developing and implementing plans to care for and monitor the five forest patches that have been planted so far. This will include assessing overall forest health, identifying where infill and replacement tree plantings are needed, and establishing priorities for controlling invasives. The team will develop plans for installing furniture, fencing, art and programming for each patch as well as the possibility of installing a comprehensive set of sensors that will facilitate monitoring.
The team will also work to explore and identify future potential sites for new patches, beyond the initial five, as well as exploring other nature-based strategies that could be applied on UVA Grounds. One new forest patch is already anticipated for North Grounds and the team will develop a design and planting plan, in collaboration with Facilities management, for this new patch. The team will also identify opportunities on Grounds for passive rewilding (natural regeneration)--sites and locations where native trees will be allowed to regenerate or conversion of turfgrass spaces to native meadows. Additional efforts may include planning for ecological connectivity between patches, calculation of carbon sequestration and other benefits, and developing new ideas for engaging students, faculty and staff. If time permits the team will also explore assessing the ecological and other conditions of several larger UVA forest patches (including Observatory Hill) and developing an application for possible acceptance into the Old Growth Forest Network.
- B. Land Use and Carbon Storage at Morven
Co-led by Justin Richardson, Professor of Environmental Sciences, and Manuel Lerdau, Professor of Environmental Sciences and Biology (up to 3 students).
This project is a combined effort by a Biogeochemist and an Ecologist, Professors Justin Richardson and Manuel Lerdau of Environmental Sciences, to understand, quantify, and predict the impacts of previous, current, and future land use practices on carbon storage and ecosystem function at Morven Sustainability Lab. The summer project involves extensive field work in fields and forests and some indoor effort using archival and computer resources to understand the patterns of land use at Morven and the impacts of different practices on carbon storage and loss from both soils and plants. In particular, students will examine the impacts of different forest and crop management strategies on carbon and nutrients in plants and soils. No previous experience is required, but relevant coursework is preferred.
- C. Promoting Climate-Resilient Agriculture Through Ecosystem Management in Virginia
Co-led by Meghan Blumstein, Professor of Environmental Sciences and Landscape Architecture and Fred Cheng, Professor of Environmental Sciences (up to 3 students).
This project is an Environmental Institute funded study that explores how land management can contribute to climate mitigation and resilience at the University of Virginia. Based at the Morven Sustainability Lab, this interdisciplinary project investigates how transitioning to regenerative agriculture, restoring riparian buffers, and diversifying forests influence soil carbon storage, greenhouse gas dynamics, water quality, and biodiversity. Summer undergraduate interns will participate in field data collection and analysis while working with researchers at UVA and partners at institutions like the Virginia Department of Forestry to study how agricultural and forest management practices can support climate decarbonization while sustaining productive rural landscapes. By generating real-time data from an actively transitioning landscape, the project functions as a living laboratory for identifying practical, climate-focused land management strategies that benefit farmers, ecosystems, and communities.
- D. Reducing Embodied Carbon in UVA’s Future Construction
Led by Mohamed Ismail, Professor of Architecture (up to 3 students).
Over the next 30 years, embodied carbon will constitute 50% of our built environment’s total carbon emissions. These are the greenhouse gas emissions related to the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of our buildings and construction materials. While novel structural optimization methods and low-carbon material substitution can enable major reductions in a building’s embodied carbon, these methods are difficult to use, inaccessible to designers and builders at scale, and hinge upon client approval. Envisioning UVA as a future leader in low-carbon construction, this project will document the embodied carbon emissions of UVA’s current construction, develop a baseline for future low-carbon construction, and propose procurement and design solutions that reduce all future buildings’ embodied carbon emissions. Using data and insight from stakeholders in UVA’s construction, and building on previous research efforts, we will explore what it takes to make UVA a leader in sustainable construction.
- E. Waste Not, Want Not
Led by JT Bachman, Professor of Architecture (up to 3 students).
This decarbonization academy team will work in a hands-on learning environment to transform locally sourced waste materials and process them into formats suitable for new design applications. This group will learn about the global waste problem and, in turn, engage with mitigating it on a local level. During the summer, we will visit UVA recycling, the UVA Rose Program, UVA Reuse, Junk Labz, local landfills and material recovery facilities to see first-hand how different waste streams are managed at various scales. Students will work with #5 plastic waste, discarded PLA 3D prints, stone countertop offcuts, fallen trees, and other locally harvested waste materials to design and build a small pavilion for use within the larger UVA community. Students' home base for work will be the A-School FabLab; however, work may also occur at Milton Airfield, Lacy Hall, or Morven Farm. Strong 2D/3D design skills, fabrication skills and knowledge of material assemblies is recommended.
- F. Geothermal Energy at UVA
Led by Leo Liu, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering (up to 3 students).
This project aims to understand and promote environmental benefits of geothermal energy applications for carbon neutralization. This project will be performed based on a large-scale geothermal application (demo) on the UVA campus, which is a main effort to support UVA’s climate action for being carbon neutral by 2030 and fossil fuel free by 2050. This unique UVA geothermal innovation utilizes over 100 closed-loop geoexchange wells drilled to 850 feet depth to first power the Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology building and ultimately provide thermal utilities for the maximum expected buildout of 1.4 M gross square feet in the Fontaine Research Park. The team will be working on the the following items over 8 weeks: 1) conduct a literature review on the assessment of geothermal energy for carbon neutralization and other environmental benefits, 2) investigate the contribution of this campus demo and possible future work to carbon neutralization via site visits, analysis, interviews, and discussions, 3) develop a framework for assessing the sustainability benefits and other environment impacts, 4) distribute the research products on campus, in social media, at technical events, and through publications to broaden the impacts, and 5) compile a list of possible external collaboration and/or funding opportunities to further broadening the impacts of the project.
- G. Sustainable Computing, Phase II: Infrastructure and User Behavior
Led by Lisa Colosi Peterson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering (up to 3 students).
This project will build upon related work done during Decarbonization Academy 2025, which evaluated the climate impacts of computing at UVA, most notably high-performance research computing (HPC). Results from Phase I revealed that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arising from HPC activities occurring at the centralized University Data Center (UDC) plus several smaller computing locations (Rice Hall and Carruthers Hall) accounted for approximately 1-2% of UVA’s overall emissions in 2025. This magnitude is roughly comparable to emissions from UVA’s transportation fleet (buses and airplane), and it is greater than several of the smaller GHG categories reported in UVA’s annual inventories. Moreover, emissions from HPC have been increasing over the last few years, even though UVA’s overall emissions decreased during the same period. Accordingly, Phase II of this work will examine possible strategies for mitigating (reducing) HPC emissions without compromising research productivity and academic competitiveness. Two broad categories of opportunities will be explored: 1) INFRASTRUCTURE, focusing on hardware, facilities, energy supply, and other “big” decisions made by UVA ITS and Facilities Management personnel; and 2) USER BEHAVOR, focusing on how members of the HPC research community navigate “small” day-to-day decisions related to computing resources, and assessing to what extent “green IT” best practices could improve efficiency and reduce environmental impact. The planned opening of the new, highly efficient Fontaine Data Center in 202X, will likely be a topic of interest for this research!
The team will be co-mentored by representatives from UVA ITS, Office for Sustainability, and the School of Engineering.
- H. Building Energy Loss and Thermal Envelope Assessment
Co-led by Arsalan Heydarian, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Brad Campbell, Associate Professor of Computer Science (up to 2 students).
Heating and cooling account for over 40 percent of UVA's total carbon footprint and the vast majority of its direct emissions, yet the University has limited systematic data on where and how energy is being lost through the building envelope across Grounds. This project will partner with the UVA Office for Sustainability and Facilities Management to conduct interior and exterior assessments of buildings on grounds, targeting energy losses through facade deficiencies, thermal bridging, insulation gaps, air leakage at window and roof-wall interfaces, and HVAC operational inefficiencies. Using UAV-based thermal and RGB imaging alongside structured building walkthroughs with facilities inspectors, student fellows will collect and analyze data from a representative set of campus buildings to identify thermal anomalies, quantify the associated energy losses and their financial costs, and detect patterns across building types, ages, and other characteristics. A central goal of the project is to translate inspection findings into actionable energy and cost estimates that help the University prioritize envelope repairs and mechanical upgrades where they will deliver the greatest return in emissions reductions and operational savings. Fellows will gain hands-on experience with drone-based sensing, thermal image analysis, building energy assessment, and direct engagement with the facility professionals responsible for maintaining UVA's built environment, contributing findings that support the University's path toward carbon neutrality by 2030 and fossil fuel-free operations by 2050.
2025 Decarb Academy Visual Story
