UMB Provost's Climate Health & Resilience Summer Student Internships

Provost Roger J. Ward supports student summer interns to implement innovative solutions to the climate crisis with faculty mentors and further UMB’s commitment to its core values of well-being and sustainability.

The summer internships follow the Spring semester Climate Change, Health, and Society (CIPP650) course and help train students to become future leaders in addressing climate change in Maryland.

For further information, please contact Dr. S. DasSarma at sdassarma@som.umaryland.edu.

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Project 2024-Curtis Bay coal storage and export

The South Baltimore Curtis Bay neighborhood is a major storage and shipping point for the export of coal from the United States. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that 28 million tons of coal was exported from Baltimore in 2023, which represents carbon emissions comparable to the total emissions from the entire State of Maryland when burned. Residents of the Curtis Bay neighborhood report that coal dust frequently covers homes, cars, schools, churches, and parks. The coal storage facility has been cited for numerous violations and experienced an explosion on December 30, 2021 that expelled coal dust covering an approximate 12 block area of Curtis Bay. The Community of Curtis Bay Association, South Baltimore Community Land Trust, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, and Maryland Department of the Environment released a study in December 2023 that confirmed the presence of coal dust in the neighborhood. In a 2017 study done by the Baltimore City Health Department and reported in the Baltimore Banner, deaths from heart disease, cancer, and chronic lower respiratory diseases were all elevated in Curtis Bay compared to Baltimore City as a whole. As a result of these studies, the interns wrote two letters to the Maryland Department of the Environment on July 9, 2024 and July 19, 2024 to urge the agency to deny the renewal of the permit for coal storage in the Curtis Bay neighborhood because "continued operation of the facility contradicts Maryland's climate goals and threatens the health and well-being of its residents." See the University of Maryland Baltimore's press release for more.