PROVIDENCE, R.I [Brown University] — A month after the conclusion of the 2026 FIFA World Cup games, Joe DaMoura received a priceless souvenir. The executive director of the Cape Verdean Museum in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, was sent a piece of turf from the exact spot in the Miami Hard Rock Stadium where Cape Verdean national team player Sidny Lopes Cabral made the dramatic equalizing kick against Argentina in the Round of 32. 

DaMoura knew just where he’d put the turf: next to a signed soccer ball from the newly world-famous team, but there was just one problem. To be displayed in the museum, the turf needed to be preserved in a way that retained its appearance indefinitely. And it needed to happen fast, before the grass died.

DaMoura called Brown University looking for help.

“I have a personal relationship and a museum relationship with Brown,” said DaMoura, who took master’s classes in teaching at Brown and has coordinated museum events and educational collaborations with the University’s Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies and the Brown University Center for Students of Color. “I know they’re connected to the local community.”

So DaMoura called on the Brown University Herbarium, which is home to over 100,000 dried and preserved historical and modern botanical specimens from Rhode Island as well as all over the world. Most of those specimens, however, are pressed plants that can be stored flat. This one needed to be preserved in multiple dimensions.

“We’ve never done anything like this,” said Herbarium Director Rebecca Kartzinel, an assistant teaching professor of biology. “The turf sample is a 3D object, like a 3-inch-thick piece of sheet cake with 1 inch of live grass on top. We needed a method that could help retain its shape as well as its color.”

The Herbarium staff immediately set to work devising multiple preservation strategies for the turf — many involving the cooperation of soccer- and science-supporting staff on campus.

First, they needed to prepare the specimen. Kartzinel recruited two undergraduate research fellows, Avinav Cariens (who coincidentally plays club soccer for Brown) and Klara Zietlow. They picked out stray plastic threads and sliced off some of the bottom to make it easier to dry out before dividing it into sections.

Two sections went into containers with silica gel desiccant, which would draw out moisture and would need to be changed daily. Herbarium Curatorial Assistant Izzy Hudson, who was also involved in the preservation process, suggested freeze-drying two other pieces in a giant machine located across campus in the geochemistry building.