The Architectural Engineering Technology program at Vermont State University holds a lunch-and-learn event once or twice a year. It is a time for a faculty member or student to talk about something either academic, professional, or personal, possibly related to the program or completely foreign to it, to students across all four years of the AET program. Past events have included how to build an outdoor pizza oven, an experience called a sound bath, and a description of a motorcycle trip to Alaska. The program provides lunch while the students listen and ask questions. The event helps students identify as a common group and strengthens interpersonal relationships.
On December 5, 2024, Dominic Mazzilli (BS.AET junior) and Caleb Tilton (BS.ELM senior) spoke about their research on permafrost and microbes in the arctic. The research project is led by Professors Ross Lieblappen and Michelle Sama. During this year, VTSU students traveled to Alaska and Greenland to investigate permafrost (which is warming due to climate change) and bring samples (typically cores of earth and permafrost (which is a permanently frozen layer of ground in cold regions)) back to campus to analyze using sophisticated microscopy. The soils were also characterized by their type and distribution of soil particle sizes. The work goes by the heading Project Draco (Dynamic Research of Arctic Cryospheric Organisms), and its objective is intended to provide basic information about permafrost and how climate change may affect it. It continues next year, with new students to join the research team.
